In this study, the cactus cladode juice was clarified by microfiltration (MF) process using the polyethersulfone (PES) membrane after being treated with Pectinex Ultra SP‐L, Viscozyme‐L, and their mixture at the ratio of 1:1 (wt/wt). The result showed that microfiltration led to no change in soluble solid and total phenolic content while increased the clarity of the juice. The membrane performance had strong correlation with the soluble polysaccharide content and viscosity of juice. Among the three studied enzyme systems, Viscozyme‐L reduced the soluble polysaccharide content, which led to lower viscosity and resulted in better membrane performance. The fouling resistance results showed that the cake layer was the dominant resistance to membrane fouling during filtration. The negligible irreversible resistance suggested that the membrane could fully recover its initial flux after cleaning. The fouling index revealed that fouling played an important role in the initial stage and lessened afterward.
Practical applications
Cactus cladode juice has health benefit of high antioxidant capacity. Membrane‐based microfiltration is considered as potential alternatives for the thermal processing, clarifying, and removing microorganism in juice using ambient temperature which preserves its physicochemical sensory characteristics. The integration of enzymatic treatment with microfiltration facilitates membrane processing and post‐cleaning, increasing membrane performance, and reducing membrane resistance and fouling.
Plant growth promoting Rhizobacteria (PGPR) have long been selected as biocontrol agents for plants. The PGPR are beneficial bacteria that live in plant roots and enhance plant growth by various of mechanisms. The PGPR have many species of the bacterial genus Pseudomonas, in which the Pseudomonas fluorescens strains is suitable for application as a biocontrol agent due to its abundance in natural soil and plant root systems. Pseudomonas fluorescens strains have important characteristics such as the ability to adhere to soil particles and to rhizomes, the ability to synthesize antibiotics, and to produce hydrolytic enzymes. Furthermore, P. fluorescens strains also possess plant growth promoting characteristics such as proteolysis, phosphate solubilization, iron chelation, and phytohormone production. Durian is a crop that has been expanded in Southeast Asian countries but the rate of durians infected with root, stem and fruit rot caused by P. palmivora is quite large. In this study, five native P. fluorescens isolates were isolated from 70 soil and rhizome samples collected from 10 durian growing provinces and evaluated for their ability to antagonize P. palmivora in petri plates. These isolates were gram negative, small, single isolated rods without sporulation when observed under microscope. All of them tested positive for catalase test, oxidase test, starch hydorolysis, gelatine liquefaction, H2S, citrate utilization and negative with indole, Voges-proskauers, methyl red. All of 5 native P. fluorescens isolates were capable of phosphate solubilizing activity, N2 fixation, siderophore and IAA production. The study showed that P. fluorescens P. fDN strain was able to inhibit P. palmivora causing rot disease in durian with 51.85% inhibition of radial growth.
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