Essential Oil of Ginger: Effect of Cultivation and Uses

Abstract

Ginger (Zingiber officinale Rosc.) is a spice used in many parts of the world for culinary and medicinal purposes. It is a good source of essential oil with both the rhizome and its essential oil becoming increasingly acceptable for traditional, medicinal and commercial uses. Essential oils may be referred to as ethereal oils or volatile oils due to their volatile nature at room temperature. This review is intended to highlight the uses of ginger essential oil as well as summarise the effect of site, duration and geographical location of cultivation on the oil. In view, there are vast and abundant uses of ginger essential oil and different cultivars of ginger would be observed to differ in weight yield and composition, with China ginger oil (4.07% yield) having 43 compounds and Indian ginger oil (1.26% yeild) having 60 compounds, hence differing in quality and bioactivity. It may be concluded in this review that various aspects of cultivation as earlier mentioned affect the composition, bioactivity, potency, colour, aroma and weight yield of ginger essential oil which essentially affect its use from one culture to another.