Solar dehydration studies on date palm cultivars Khadrawy and Khalas

Abstract

Date palm (Phoenix dactylifera L.) cultivars Khadrawy and Khalas are classified as important non-astringent types. Under Indian climatic conditions, the fruits are not suited for harvest beyond doka stage due to monsoon showers. Furthermore, fruits harvested at doka stage are unsuitable for consumption due to astringency or tart in taste. The fruits harvested at this stage also have very poor shelf-life of upto three days only at room temperature. In view of above facts, a study was conducted on date palm cultivars viz., Khadrawy and Khalas to explore the postharvest utilization through solar dehydration using inclined solar drier developed by ICAR-CAZRI, Jodhpur. The experiment was conducted under complete randomized design with eight treatments and three replications which consists of drying the whole fruits and pulp for three different duration i.e., five, seven and nine days under inclined solar dryer, whereas, drying under sunlight was taken as control. Results pertaining to physical and biochemical parameters revealed significant difference for both percent recovery (60.4%), minimum PLW (T5-50.5%) in treatment where whole fruits were dried for nine days. Non-significant differences were observed for biochemical parameters viz., total sugar, reducing sugar and non-reducing sugar. However, insignificant differences among treatments were observed for both physical and biochemical parameters for Khalas cultivar as compared to control (percent recovery-39.2%, 36.5%) and physiological loss in weight (control-60.7%, 63.4%). Hence, solar dehydration for Khadrawy through solar drier was found to be better for percent recovery with minimum physiological loss in weight of the pulp compared to Khalas cultivar.