Three indigenous cucurbit seeds from Ivory Coast namely Cucumeropsis mannii Naudin, Citrullus lanatus var. Citroides (Thrumb.) Matsum & Nakai and Cucumis melo var. Agrestis were investigated for the physicochemical properties. Thermal properties of their crude oils extracted by a cold solvent method were also tested. Physicochemical characterization of the seeds showed that they are important sources of proteins, lipids, carbohydrates and mineral elements. C. lanatus seeds had the highest lipid content (46.40%) followed by C. melo seeds (36.50%) and C. mannii seeds (35.70%) on dry weigh bases. Most of the index values and chemical characteristics of extracted seed oils are not significantly different, except for the peroxide value and the color parameters of C. mannii. Linoleic acid, whose values ranged from 54.84% to 70.76%, was the major fatty acid out of all seed oil species. The thermal properties revealed that C. melo seed oil had low transition temperatures followed by C. lanatus seed oil and C. mannii seed oil depending on their fatty acid compositions. These results suggest that these thermal properties could be used in the industrial fractionation and the cucurbit seed oils may be used as edible oils due to their similarity to the commonly used edible oils.

Peanut (Arachis species) plants originated in South America where they have existed for thousands of years. Successively, peanut culture has been introduced in many African countries and was incorporated into local traditional food cultures. Numerous studies showed peanut nutritive importance and capacity to prevent several human diseases. The target of the present survey aimed to create a germplasm benchmark of peanut varieties in the north region of Côte d'Ivoire (West Africa country) since this plant is weakly studied in this geographic area. For this purpose, six peanut varieties were processed and pre and/or post-harvest measurements have been brought on seedlings. In addition, biochemical composition of peanut seed for each considered varieties were measured. Statistical analysis based on several R software functions showed a good quality of collected peanut data and proposed post-harvest parameters as an adequate factor clustering the present analyzed peanut varieties. Then, statistical analysis performed in this study, allowed to cluster analyzed peanut varieties in two different groups. Moreover, the same survey evidenced a strong agreement between both postharvest and biochemistry parameters assessing the difference between the two detected peanut variety groups (p-value < 0.05). Finally, the findings exhibited protein, glucose as well as ash biochemistry parameters as decent indicators selecting and clustering the present managed peanut varieties (p-value <0.05). In conclusion, this study proved a methodology demarche suggesting the possibility to hypothesize peanut germplasm benchmark in the savanna region of Côte d'Ivoire.

Sweet potato leaves contain phenolic and flavonoids compounds which give them a potential antioxidant capacity. However, these antioxidant activities can be lost during cooking due to high temperature. In the aim to enhance their antioxidant activities, sweet potato leaves were steamed with antioxidant spices. The spices were used alone or mixed: nutmeg, Guinea pepper, cloves, nutmeg-Guinea pepper, nutmeg-cloves, Guinea pepper-cloves and nutmeg-Guinea pepper-cloves. The phytochemical analysis was carried-out on total phenolic compounds and flavonoids, while the antioxidant activities were determined via free radical-scavenging and inhibition power of lipid peroxidation. The results showed that cloves total phenolic content (513.33 mg Gallic Acid Equivalent (GAE)/g dry matter (DM)) increased to 1786.67 mg GAE/g DM when mixed with Guinea pepper. Flavonoids content was high in Guinea pepper-cloves (57.17 mg Quercetin Equivalent (QE)/g DM). In sweet potato steamed leaves, total phenolic compounds content is improved by incorporating cloves (625.83 mg GAE/g DM), while flavonoids content is slightly improved by Guinea pepper (125.00 mg QE/g DM). Among spices, cloves, Guinea pepper-cloves and nutmeg IC50 values (0.45, 0.83 and 1.50 &mu;g/ml respectively) did not differ significantly to that of vitamin C (1.67 &mu;g/ml), indicating that they had a good antiradical activity. The capacity of spices and steamed sweet potato leaves with and without spices to inhibit lipid peroxidation was higher than that of Gallic acid which is the standard reference. Spices, particularly cloves and Guinea pepper can improve antioxidant activities during sweet potato leaves steaming.

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For the estimation of genetic parameters (such as heterosis effect, potence ratio, combining ability and reciprocal effects) of five fruit traits, in order to suggest breeding strategies in Citrullus mucosospermus (Fursa), a field trial was carried out at Kononfla city in Western Côte d'Ivoire using 4x4 full diallel. All 12 F 1 hybrids and their parents were planted in a randomized complete block design with three replications. A positive heterosis effect relative to mid-parental values was observed to hybrids having one parent Bebu for characters' fruit weight, fruit diameter and fruit volume. Variances due to general (GCA) and specific (SCA) combining abilities were significant (P˂0.001) for all studied traits, indicating the involvement of both additive and non-additive gene actions in the inheritance of these traits. Non-additive gene effects were predominant for all studied traits. Bebu was the best general combiner for all traits except fruit number which the best combiners were three morphotypes of Wss. For NF, Wss1×Wss2 and Wss2×Wss3 recorded the highest positive SCA values. Crosses involving Bebu as one parent, presented the best SCA values for other traits.