Habitat suitability evaluation of high-quality Panax notoginseng based on FT-NIR and HPLC

Increased global warming and human activities have resulted in the shrinking and displacement of suitable habitats for medicinal plants, accompanied by a decline in their quality. As a traditional medicinal plant, Panax notoginseng (P. notoginseng) has become the main raw material for many Chinese medicinal preparations, tablets and proprietary Chinese medicines, as well as an important pillar of regional economic development. This study collected species occurrence records of P. notoginseng through online databases and field surveys and combined them with environmental factors to establish a prediction model for suitable habitats. Samples of P. notoginseng in highly suitable habitats were collected to study the association between its chemical markers and environmental factors. Meanwhile, a model for the identification of P. notoginseng origin and a rapid prediction model for the saponin content were established using a combination of FT-NIR, HPLC and machine learning. The suitable habitat (3.80 × 10⁵ km²) of P. notoginseng was mainly distributed in Yunnan, and that temperature variation and precipitation played a key role in the distribution of P. notoginseng. FT-NIR was able to realize the accurate identification of the origin of P. notoginseng with an accuracy of 100 %, while the combination of PLSR was able to accurately predict the content of chemical markers of P. notoginseng, with the RPD values higher than 2.3 in all cases. In conclusion, this study may provide new ideas for the development of new planting areas for P. notoginseng.