Vol. 11, Issue 3 (2022)

Author(s):
MN Mamathashree, BG Prakash and B Fakrudin

Abstract:
From root to shoot, every part of the tamarind tree is beneficial. Being the economic part, the pulp possesses useful nutrients. The present study aims at assessing the quantum of biochemical components present among 96 tamarind genotypes collected from thirty districts of Karnataka during the year 2018-19 at the College of Horticulture, Bengaluru. From the study of thirteen biochemical parameters, it was revealed that the significant variations among the mean values of genotypes for biochemical parameters viz., TSS (2.30 to 11.03), starch (0.36 to 1.99%), total sugars (40.35 to 49.18%), reducing sugars (31.41 to 40.48%), non-reducing sugars (6.43 to 11.78%), total phenols (36.32 to 70.39 mg/100g), total flavonoids (11.49 to 36.66 mg/100g), free amino acids (2.00 to 3.76 mg/100g), anthocyanin (2.68 to 7.21 mg/100g), crude fiber (6.66 to 11.23%), antioxidant activity (50.51 to 91.67%), tartaric acid (4.8 to 11.4 mg/100g) and tryptophan (2.03 to 3.93 µg/g) contents indicated that the genotypes were highly diverse for all the biochemical parameters. The top-performing five genotypes in terms of fruit yield/plant did not possess good values for biochemical parameters except TAM_KOL1 genotype, which had a fairly good amount of tartaric acid (11.40 mg/100g), free amino acid (3.58 mg/100g), total sugars (49.18%) and reducing sugars (39.78%). The genetic variation components viz., PCV ranged from 10.26 to 40.92% while GCV ranged from 8.93 to 38.51%. High heritability estimates coupled with high genetic advance as percent mean were observed in most characters. Hence, the selection based on such characters would be reliable for tamarind improvement programme.