Food-flavouring smoke extracts promote seed germination

Aqueous extracts of plant-derived smoke promote seed germination. Two commercial smoke food flavourants were tested for their ability to stimulate seed germination. Both extracts promoted germination or light-sensitive Grand Rapids lettuce seeds. One commercial food flavourant, Smoke Liquid Concentrate 94725, and an aqueous smoke extract of Themeda triandra were subjected to bioassay-guided fractionation. Purification steps included semi-preparative HPLC, two TLC systems and analytical HPLC. Each purification step was monitored using the lettuce seed bioassay and biologically active fractions were pooled for further fractionation. After each step, biological activity was found in the same fractions for both the commercial smoke extract and the T. triandra extract, indicating that they possibly contain the same active compound(s).