The chlorophyll is one of the most important natural pigments used extensively in the food industry. Two important factors for the production of chlorophyll are the use of plants rich in chlorophyll and efficiency of extraction method. Present investigation was performed to compare the extraction of photosynthetic pigments by using solvents of different chemical nature. The purslane plants with different growth behavior viz. Scrollable and standing were grown under shade and sunshine stress condition. Different solvents including diethyl ether, 5% ethanol, pure acetone, 20% acetone, pure methanol and 10% methanol were used to extract chlorophyll and carotenoids from the purslane plant. The results indicated that stress, growth type and different solvents had a significant effect on the extraction of chlorophyll and carotenoids. Different trend was observed in extraction rate for chlorophylls and carotenoids. Among the solvents, pure methanol was the best for extraction of chl a. Methanol and acetone were appropriate solvents to achieve the highest amount of chlorophyll from plant tissues. Among different solvents, pure methanol for chl a, pure acetone and methanol for carotenoids were best solvent for purslane plant with a growing type scrollable of under shade.

Halophytic plants are, by definition, well adapted to saline soils. However, even halophytes can face nutritional imbalance and accumulation of high levels of compounds such as oxalic acid (OA), and nitrate (NO₃^¯). These compounds compromise the potential nutritional health benefits associated with salt tolerant plants such as Portulaca oleracea. Thus, preventing the accumulation of non-nutritional compounds will allow plants to be grown in saline conditions as crops. To this end, two ecotypes (ET and RN) of Portulaca oleracea plants were grown under growth room conditions with two levels of salinity (0, 50 mM NaCl) and three ratios of nitrate: ammonium (0:100%; 33:66%; 25:75% NO₃^¯:NH₄⁺). The results showed that both ecotypes exposed to elevated NO₃^¯, showed severe leaf chlorosis, high levels of OA, citric acid, and malic acid, while plants of ecotype ET exposed to elevated NH₄⁺ concentrations (33% and 75%) and 50 mM NaCl displayed a marked reduction in OA content, increased total chlorophyll and carotenoid contents, crude protein content, total fatty acid (TFA) and α-Linolenic acid (ALA) thus enhancing leaf quality. This opens the potential to grow high biomass, low OA P. oleracae crops. Lastly, our experiments suggest that ecotype ET copes with saline conditions and elevated NH₄⁺ through shifts in leaf metabolites.