Characterization of Bushy Cashew (Anacardium humile A. St.-Hil.) in the State of Goiás, Brazil

Abstract

The physical and chemical characteristics of the fruits influence the consumer acceptance. The objective of this study was to perform the physical, physico-chemical and chemical characterization of fruits of accessions of bushy cashew (Anacardium humile A. St.-Hil.) (cashew nut and cashew apple) in a germplasm bank located in southwest of the state of Goiás, in Brazil, aiming at the selection of superior accessions, in order to facilitate the initiation of a program to encourage the production and consumption, for provide information for breeding programs and the specie preservation. This research study was conducted at the Laboratory of genetics and molecular biology with material collected in the Experimental Station of the Federal University of Jataí, within the biological ex situ collection of Anacardium humile, in the field of genetic resources. In the harvest of 2016, within this collection, they were evaluated accesses for the characteristics of the cashew apple: length, diameter of base, apex diameter, weight, instrumental coloration of the epidermis and pulp, titratable acidity (citric acid), vitamin C content (ascorbic acid) and carotenoid content; cashew nut were evaluated: length, width, thickness and weight. The results were submitted to descriptive analysis, obtaining average, minimum, maximum and variation coefficient and the correlation between the variables, testing the significance by the t test. Most of the accesses showed high CV for most of the variables, demonstrating high heterogeneity of the observed values. Cashew apples have high levels of vitamin C and carotenoids, indicating the nutritional potential of the specie.

Leaf area estimation of Anacardium humile

“…Toebe et al (2012), report that the leaf disc method was inadequate to determine the snap bean leaf area, as it was underestimated and the image analysis method was efficient because it evaluates the leaf as a whole, regardless of the weight difference between the areas. By Pearson's correlation coefficients between the features of the leaves of A. humile, it is possible to observe that width, leaf area, length and leaf weight presented significant correlation with each other (Table 2), indicating that the leaf linear measurements are directly related to the leaf area, this behavior allows to evaluate the vegetative growth, biomass accumulation and the final plant productivity (PEZZINI et al, 2018). Rev.…”

“…Besides the great potential of this fruit species due to its high vitamin C content, the leaves are also widely used in common medicine as expectorant (FERREIRA et al, 2012;PEREIRA et al, 2019;MUIANGA et al, 2016). It has been reported that these leaves have insecticidal, anti-inflammatory, antimicrobial and antioxidant properties (ANDRADE FILHO et al, 2010).…”