Samples were administered to the plates as 5 mm wide bands via Linomat-5 automatic sample applicator (with nitrogen flow) equipped with a 100 μl Hamilton syringe. Delivery rate from the Hamilton syringe was fixed at 100 nl/s. Linear ascending mode of development up to a distance of 80 mm, with ethyl acetate: methanol: water (100:16.5:13.5) as mobile phase ( Wagner and Bladt, 1996 and Gutterman and Chauser-Volfson, 2000), was implemented at room temperature (22 ± 2 °C) and 50% relative humidity in a CAMAG twin trough glass chamber (20 cm × 10 cm) saturated earlier with mobile phase vapour for 20 min. After development, the plates were dried at 100 °C for 10 min, derivatized with 100 ml of 10% (v/v) alcoholic KOH solution, following which densitometric scanning was executed at 366 nm (Wagner and Bladt, 1996).