Abstract
This study was performed to investigate the influence of curing conditions on the composition of essential oil during curing process of burley tobacco leaves. The curing conditions were the primed curing in vinyl house (house-curing), air-curing barn (air-curing) and stalk-curing in conventional curing house (stalk-curing). Total 90 compounds are identified from the steam volatile oils of harvest and cured tobacco leaves by GC and GC-MS, respectively. The major components were neophytadiene, hexadecanoic acid, 3,8,13-duvatriene-1,5-diols, oxide-9-methylene-3,13-duvadienols, solanone, megastigma-4,6,8-trien-3-ones, phenylacetaldehyde, $\beta$-phenylethyl alcohol, indole, dihydroactinidiolide and phytol. The amount of alcoholic compounds was decreased more than approximately 50% in cured leaves without regard to the curing conditions. $\beta$-Phenylethyl alcohol and 3,8,13-duvatriene-1,5-diols were decreased more in air curing and stalk curing than in house curing. The amounts of phenylacetaldehyde, solanone, $\beta$-damascone, $\beta$ -damascenone, oxysolanone and megastigma-4,6,8-trien-3-ones as ketonic compounds, dihydroactinidiolide and indole as miscellaneous compounds in air-cured and stalk-cured tobacco leaves were 2 times higher than those in house-cured leaves, while esteric and acidic compounds were not changed largely in content by curing conditions.