Study on physical characteristics of Ceratonia siliqua pods using specific biochemical markers

Abstract

Two samples of carob (Ceratonia siliqua) pods were assessed for the morphological and physiological characteristics in the Mediterranean region. Ceratonia siliqua is considered as a versatile plant with edible pods and as a raw material in pharmaceuticals and cosmetic industries, thus, accentuating its commercial value. The risk of genetic erosion has rendered an urgency to study and describe the actual consistency of carob pods. Therefore, this experiment was conducted on carob collected from two regions, Aleppo in Syria and Crete in Greece. Pods from every sample were analyzed for physical characteristics like length, width, thickness, number of seeds per pod, seed weight and pulp weight. Specific biochemical markers were determined for the methanol extract of carob pods from the two samples of seeds. In the findings we noticed a clear difference between the two samples in most physical traits except number of seeds per pod. There was no significant difference in the specific biochemical markers between the two samples of carob cultivars. The knowledge of morphological and physiological characters is of great importance for the industries and conservation purposes, thus in-depth studies in this area are imperative.