Medicinal and Aromatic Crops ― Production, Phytochemistry, and Utilization

In the later part of the 20th century, the United States experienced a remarkable surge in public interest toward medicinal and aromatic crops and this trend continues. This consumer interest helped create a significant demand for plants with culinary and medicinal applications as the public discovers their benefits for a wide range of applications. Consequently, this consumer call has generated a huge demand on farmers, but has also provided opportunities for new agricultural crops to support both fresh and dry raw material markets. Processing raw materials for end use by consumers introduces even more variables at all levels from harvesting to final desired product. Maintaining quality and authenticity throughout this process has inspired farmers, processing facilities, and regulatory agencies to adopt new practices and new laws to maintain safety and quality. Maintaining this quality and authenticity is often made possible using analytical methods for quality control, which subsequently triggered a demand for both regulatory agencies and scientists throughout the world. For aforementioned reasons, it is imperative that scientists continue to explore related topics from the field to the final consumer product. This book touches on many of the issues currently being addressed by scientists working to produce the desired consumer product while maintaining authenticity and quality and environmental stewardship.

Valtcho D. Jeliazkov (Zheljazkov) is a tenured associate professor at Oregon State University. He received his Ph.D. in Plant and Soil Sciences from the University of Massachusetts in Amherst. Previously, he obtained a Ph.D. in Agronomy from the Agricultural University in Plovdiv, Bulgaria. He was a Fulbright Scholar at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst in 1996?1997. He conducts agronomy research with impact in three general areas: agriculture, health, and the environment. The focus of Dr. Jeliazkov's research in general agriculture is on improving profitability of production systems with high value agricultural crops, products, and processes.

Dr. Cantrell received a B.S. in physiology and zoology from Louisiana State University (LSU) in 1994. He obtained a Ph.D. in Chemistry from LSU in 1998 under the direction of Dr. Nikolaus H. Fischer. From 1998 to 2000 he conducted postdoctoral research in the Laboratory of Drug Discovery Research and Development, National Cancer Institute, in Frederick, Maryland. Dr. Cantrell is currently a Research Chemist for the USDA-ARS in Oxford, MS and an Associate Professor in the Department of Pharmacognosy at The University of Mississippi.