Physicochemical Properties of Flours Derived from Cassava Landraces (Manihot esculenta Crantz.) in Western Ghat Region Kanagarasu S.*, Ganeshram S, Joel A John Department of Plant Genetic Resources, Centre for Plant Breeding and Genetics, Tamil Nadu Agricultural University, Coimbatore - 641 003, Tamil Nadu, India *E-mail: kanagas26@gmail.com
Online published on 24 December, 2014. Abstract Exploration was conducted at southern region of Western Ghats and 56 landraces were collected from 32 villages. The collected landraces were subjected to physicochemical, biochemical and pasting properties analysis at biochemical laboratory of the Department of Plant Genetic Resourecs, TamilNadu Agricultural University to unravel their potential in food and industrial applications. The analysis of variance showed a wide genotypic variation exists in proximate composition and pasting properties of cassava landraces. Amylose content ranged between 14.4–30.4 per cent andstarch content between 10.0–39.7 per cent. Among the 56 landraces studied, paste clarity was high for eighteen landraces (>25 per cent). Swelling of cassava flours increases with increased temperature in landraces studied. The observed differences in pasting properties is indicative of the fact that cassava genotypes can be targeted for use in different food and industrial products. Correlation study revealed that the amylose content was positively correlated to the starch content and thepeak viscosity and negatively correlated to paste clarity suggesting its importance in food, textile and paper industries. The identified two landraces viz., Karialai Porian (Tall) and Yeathan Chivalai which possessed low amylose content with high paste clarity can be used in food and non-food industries. The landrace Olly marungu recorded high swelling power with high amylose and starch content and used in food based industries especially in production of resistant starch. The results indicated the potential of selected landraces which can be used directly for industrial purposes or in breeding programme to evolve superior varieties/hybrids. Top Keywords Cassava, landraces, amylose content, physicochemical, pasting properties. Top |