By Cat Holmes
University of Georgia
Scientists are researching bloodroot, a native Eastern
wildflower with antimicrobial properties, to find out the best
way to propagate it as a commercial crop.
“Bloodroot is rich in alkaloids which have antibiotic
properties,” said Jim Affolter, a horticulturist who is leading
the studies in the University of Georgia College of
Agricultural and Environmental Sciences.
“Companies in Europe are starting to use it in animal feed to
improve appetite and digestion. It’s a potentially enormous
market,” Affolter said.
“Bloodroot isn’t terribly hard to grow, but it hasn’t been
produced on a commercial scale. It’s not rare, but it’s not
common, either,” he said. “Natural populations could easily be
decimated if industry production sent people out to scour the
forests the way the ginseng market has done.”
Bloodroot’s most-studied alkaloid is called sanguinarine (sang-
GWEN-uh-reen), which has proven antimicrobial properties, said
UGA horticulture researcher Selima Campbell.
Sanguinarine is used as a feed additive for livestock in
Europe, in the same way antibiotics have been used as growth
promoters for U.S. livestock. In 1998, the European Union
banned the use of all antibiotics used in human medicine for
livestock production.
A representative of German-based Phytobiotics, an animal
feedstock additive company, visited the UGA Athens campus
recently to meet with scientists on bloodroot’s potential as a
commercial crop. One of their products, Sangrovit, contains
sanguinarine.
The Centers for Disease Control and the World Health
Organization say banning human-use antibiotics from livestock
feed will help protect people from new, drug-resistant
bacteria, which the CDC calls one of the world’s most pressing
public health problems.
To grow bloodroot for its sanguinarine, UGA researchers are
focusing on three unknowns, Campbell said.
The first is to find where exactly in the plant and when during
its growth cycle sanguinarine concentrations are highest. This
will determine what part of the plant is harvested and when.
“Preliminary results show that the sanguinarine is allocated to
the rhizome,” Campbell said. “(That) is the source of
bloodroot’s name. When the ‘root’ (rhizome) of bloodroot is
cut, it ‘bleeds’ a bright red substance containing a number of
different, potent alkaloids.”
A second unknown is how bloodroot responds to differing
sunlight levels. Bloodroot flowers in woodland areas in early
spring, before the trees have leafed out. It then lives out the
rest of it’s cycle in the shade.
Researchers want to know if seasonal changes in photosynthesis
and light levels affect the sanguinarine concentrations. This
could tell them the best ways to grow it to get the most
sanguinarine.
The final area of study is its propagation.
“Right now, bloodroot is wild-gathered,” Campbell said. “It’s a
slow-growing plant, so gathering it by the ton would definitely
stress natural populations. It’s crucial to develop a way to
propagate the plants.”
By the time they’re through, the UGA scientists hope to know
the best growing conditions for bloodroot. “This would allow
growers to exert quality control over the product, conserve
wild plants and be a new source of economic development,”
Campbell said.
While bloodroot’s use in oral hygiene products and animal
feedstock is recent, its medicinal history is centuries old,
Affolter said.
“Bloodroot was used for centuries by native Americans to dye
their clothing and paint their faces,” he said. “They also used
it to treat skin cancers and fungal growths.”
Southerners have harvested bloodroot from the wild since post-
Colonial times. “They used it as an emetic, an expectorant for
bronchitis and a gargle for sore throats,” Affolter said.
(Cat Holmes is a science writer with the University of Georgia
College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences.)
