Early Growth and Physiological Characteristics of Parasenecio firmus by Shading Conditions in Forest Farming

Parasenecio firmus is a perennial plant in Asteraceae, Parasenecio that distributed in Korea, China, and Japan. As dietary style changes for well-being life, consumer demand for functional wild vegetable is increasing. P. firmus has great fragrance and texture and contains caffeoylquinic acid. It has the potential to be further developed as a functional wild vegetable. However, as the natural habitat of P. firmus is quite limited and it should be collected manually in natural stand. So it is need to be a scientific research for artificial cultivation in forest. This study was conducted to investigate the optimum light conditions of P. firmus in forest farming. In this experiment, P. firmus was grown under four different light conditions (50%, 30%, 20%, and 10% of full sunlight) and non-treated (full sunlight). Out of five different shading conditions, P. firmus has shown the best physiological and growth responses to 10% and 20% of full sunlight. There is no statistically significant difference in other shading conditions. At 10% of full sunlight, P. firmus has shown the highest level of statistical significance in the length of shoot, fresh weight of shoot, water contents in all part, SLA (specific leaf area) and LAR (leaf area ratio). It indicates higher water content level, thinner leaf, and wider light-interception areas. On the other hand, at 20% of full sunlight, root color diameter, root length, total fresh weight, total dry weight, leaf area, and chlorophyll contents turned out to be high. It shows that P. firmus is active in chlorophyll activities and carbon dioxide assimilation at even lower light conditions. These results suggest that the optimum light level of P. firmus for artificial cultivation ranges from 10 to 20% of full sunlight. These results can be used as basic data for forest farming.