Proximate and nutritional attributes of sabzo date palm fruit from Panjgur, Balochistan as affected by various drying methods.

Zain-ul-abbideen 1, Sami Ullah 1, *, Gulzar Akhtar, Nazar Faried, Kashif Razzaq, Ishtiaq A. Rajwana1, 

1 Department of Horticulture, MNS-University of Agriculture, Multan 

2 Affiliation 2; e-mail@e-mail.com

* Correspondence: sami.ullah1@mnsuam.edu.pk; Tel.: (optional; include country code; if there are multiple corresponding authors, add author initials)

Abstract: Date palm (Phoenix dactylifera. L) thrive in areas having high temperature and low humidity. However, in date palm core production areas of Pakistan, to avoid fruit losses, due to prevalence of early wet ‘Monsoon’ rain seasons at fruit maturity force growers to harvest fruit prematurely for drying, affecting quality. Therefore, a study was planned to evaluate the effect of monsoon rainfall on dates through various drying methods of date palm fruit on quality of fruit at two fruit maturity stages: ‘Khalal’, early fruit maturity and ‘Rutab’, Mid fruit maturity stage. Further, fruit were subjected to drying methods ‘Sun-drying’, ‘hot-air drying’ and ‘freeze- drying’ at both stages of cv. ‘Sabzo’. The results reveled that the fruit dried through freeze drying at both fruit maturity stages exhibited better physical, biochemical, antioxidative and proximate attributes than other drying methods. Date fruit dried through freeze drying exhibited higher fruit total soluble solids (25.19°Brix), juice pH (6.18%) and titratable acidity (0.56%), moisture content (5.15g/100g), ash percentage (6.63g/100g), crude fiber (12.02g/100g), fat content (23.63g/100g), Carbohydrate (50.2g/100g), crude protein (9.06g/100g) and calories (1724.23Kcal/100g). fruit aroma (7.96), color (8.37), taste (8.53), texture (8.23) and flavor (8.37). Antioxidative enzymes; superoxide dismutase (4.05 Umg-1 protein), catalase (20.13 U mg-1 protein). Phytochemicals; carotenoids (3.02 mg GAE/100g), total phenolics (333.73mg GAE/100g). Conclusively, Freeze-drying at Rutab stage emerged as the most effective method for retaining higher quality attributes of ‘Sabzo’ date palm fruits ultimately retained nutritional and health benefits of dried fruit.

                   Keywords: Date palm, ‘Monsoon ‘rain, dehydrating techniques, Panjgur