Application of Recent Advanced Technologies for the Improvement of Medicinal and Aromatic Plants

Medicinal and aromatic plants are important natural sources of active substances that are not only used as a primary source of medicines but also as phytochemical raw materials for the production of new drugs. The increasing demand of various industries for medicinal plants and their effective ingredients requires increased crop yield and improvement of the quality of their secondary metabolites. Considering that the medicinal plant quantity and quality are mainly determined by environmental factors, genetics, and their interaction effects, several factors can apply to change the yield and profiles of secondary metabolites. Recently, controlling the climatic condition and applying different implemented fertilizers and biotechnology approaches are needed in improving the medicinal and aromatic plant production with interest quality. In this chapter, we investigated the effects of bio-fertilizers, environmental elicitors, tissue culture techniques, and polyploidy induction on improving the yield and modifying the biological compounds of medicinal and aromatic plants.