## 3 Results and Discussion
### Selected Plant Growth Attributes
The antioxidant activity, which was approximately 12.4 \(\pm\) 2.2% for DPPH and 17.2 \(\pm\) 1.8% for ABTS at 30 DAS, steadily increased and showed the highest DPPH (28.8 \(\pm\) 2.3%) and ABTS (30.5 \(\pm\) 1.4%) at 80 DAS at a sample concentration of 100 ug/mL and 50 ug/mL, as shown in Figure 5A. This low trend concordance was once again confirmed through correlation analysis (Figure 7A). A strong correlation coefficient (_r_) of 0.7181 (_p_ < 0.01) was observed between TPC and RAC, and both were positively affecting AOA. In the case of RAC, the \(r\) values between DPPH (_r_ = 0.8291, \(p\) < 0.005) and ABTS (0.8148, \(p\) < 0.005) were similar, while TPC had a more significant positive correlation with ABTS (_r_ = 0.9564, \(p\) < 0.005) than with DPPH (_r_ = 0.7181, \(p\) < 0.005). A similar pattern showing a different tendency between TPC and RAC was also observed from SO. There was no dramatic change in TPC. However, in the case of RAC, it was found to increase significantly (_p_ < 0.05) approximately 3.88 times during the transition from S1 (30 DAS) to S2-1 (60 DAS), and this content was maintained during the vegetative phases (S2, 70-80 DAS). Not only TPC results but these secondary metabolites are also considered to affect the AOA of SO. In terms of AOA, DPPH activity was highly determined at 70 and 80 DAS with activity values of 62.9 \(\pm\) 0.9 and 58.8 \(\pm\) 1.5% at a sample concentration of  
Figure 3: HPLC chromatogram of (**A**) AR, (**B**) MO, (**C**) OBP, and (**D**) SO observed at 280 nm. Different line colors of the chromatogram indicated harvest time according to the DAS. 100 ug/mL, as depicted in Figure 5D. Meanwhile, a non-significant difference (\(p<0.05\)) was observed in ABTS. A higher correlation coefficient between RAC and DPPH (\(r=0.8840\), \(p<0.005\)) was observed than between TPC and DPPH (\(r=0.6420\), \(p<0.05\)) (Figure 7D). Therefore, it was explained that RAC is a more important factor than other phenolics when determining the AOA of SO. In the case of MO, both TPC and RAC showed a moderate-strong correlation coefficient with growth parameters (weight and height) during the growth progression, indicating a consistent increase (Figure 4). TPC and RAC increased from 232.5 mg GAE/g and 29.4 mg/g in S1 (30 DAS) to 323.7 mg GAE/g and 120.3 mg/g in S2-3 (80 DAS), following a similar trend that led to a moderate correlation between TPC and RAC (\(r=0.6292\), \(p<0.05\)) (Figure 6B). Consequently, the positive influence of both TPC and RAC on AOA was depicted. TPC showed a higher correlation with DPPH (\(r=0.9011\), \(p<0.005\)) and ABTS (\(r=0.9220\), \(p<0.005\)) than RAC (DPPH: \(r=0.7843\), \(p<0.005\) and ABTS: \(r=0.7423\), \(p<0.01\)) (Figure 7B). Therefore, it has been proven that the contribution of TPC to AOA is higher than that of RA. Figure 4: Changes in TPC (mg GAE/g) and RAC (mg/g) from AR (**A**,**B**), MO (**C**,**D**), OBP (**E**,**F**), and SO (**G**,**H**) at elevated DAS. Values were expressed as mean \(\pm\) standard error (SE). Different lower letters (a–d) indicate statistically significant differences of TPC and RAC among DAS following [PERSON]’s multiple-range test method (\(p<0.05\)). Figure 5: DPPH radical scavenging activity (50 and 100 \(\upmu\)g/mL) and ABTS radical scavenging activity (25 and 50 \(\upmu\)g/mL) of (**A**) AR, (**B**) MO, (**C**) OBP, and (**D**) SO at elevated DAS. Values were expressed as mean \(\pm\) standard error (SE). Statistical differences of antioxidant activities among DAS were shown as lowercase letters (a–c) using [PERSON]’s multiple-range test method (\(p<0.05\)). Figure 6: Effect of cultivation period on main VOCs of (**A**) AR, (**B**) MO, (**C**) OBP, and (**D**) SO following the elevated DAS. The main components (those with a high proportion in terms of total quantity) and Etc (representing the content of the minor components after subtracting main compounds content from the total quantity) were indicated.