Physico-chemical characterization of wild and semi wild Indian gooseberry from Mizoram, North-East India

Abstract

An extensive survey was made to identify and collect the elite genotypes of Indian gooseberry at different altitude in its natural population and find out the promising genotypes having good fruit quality from different regions of the Mizoram, North-Eastern region of India, during 2015–17. The mature fruits were analyzed for a number of traits like fruit weight, fruit length, fruit diameter, fruit volume, specific gravity, pulp weight, pulp-stone ratio, pulp percentage, stone weight, moisture content, TSS, acidity, ascorbic acid, total sugars, reducing sugar, non-reducing sugar, sugar: acid ratio and TSS: acid ratio. Significant to highly significant differences were observed with respect to fruit weight (5.42–9.04 g); fruit length (18.98–24.08 mm); fruit diameter (19.46–20.02 mm); volume (4, 58-8.79 cc); specific gravity (1.029–1.167 g/cc); pulp weight (7.26–3.92 g); pulp-stone ratio (1.63–6.98); pulp percentage (60.27–84.81%); stone length (9.27–12.80 mm); stone weight (0.58–2.94g); moisture content (78.70–87.57%); TSS (9.48–14.93°B); acidity (1.35–2.69%); ascorbic acid (418.27–894.15 mg/100 g); total sugars (5.59–13.08%); reducing sugar (1.29–9.37%); non-reducing sugars (1.29–6.16%); sugar: acid ratio (2.71–10.93) and TSS: acid ratio (3.89–11.87). Among all the germplasms, HAMP-MZU-AS-2, HAMP-MZU-AS-3 and HAMP-MZU-AS-29 showed the overall superiority in all the parameters. Hence, HAMP-MZU-AS-2, HAMP-MZU-AS-3 and HAMP-MZU-AS-29 can be considered as elite germplasm for use in various purposes.