Vol. 12, Issue 5 (2023)

Author(s):
Karthik HN and Ramana P

Abstract:
Forests are a rich reserve of compounds that can be used as pharmaceuticals and nutraceuticals. The genus Garcinia, which belongs to the Clusiaceae family, has about 200 species that are found throughout the world's tropics, mostly in Asia, Africa, and Polynesia Garcinia gummi-gutta (L) Rob. is the most commercially exploited for organic acids with its vast economic importance worldwide. Hydroxycitric acid (HCA) is known to have excellent anti-obesity property. Field study was conducted to determine the effect of different locations and its site factors on organic acid content of G. gummi-gutta fruits in 9 different sites of Uttara Kannada, Karnataka. A statistically significant influence of sites conditions on the organic acid content. The Organic acids were found higher in site S₁(with altitude 646.3 m MSL, high precipitation and average temperature of 24 ℃), the highest of 7.85±0.23% (-)-Hydroxycitric acid lactone (HCA-L) with the average 7.15±0.57% and 21.52±1.28% of HCA with the average of 18.47±1.50% was found respectively. The HCA and HCA-L had very strong positive correlation (r = 0.84 to 0.98) with site factors (except mean annual temperature).