comparative study on five sudanese date (phoenix dactylifera l.) fruit cultivars比较研究5苏丹日期(凤凰dactylifera l .).pdfVIP

Food and Nutrition Sciences, 2012, 3, 1245-1251 1245 /10.4236/fns.2012.39164 Published Online September 2012 (http://www.SciRP.org/journal/fns) Comparative Study on Five Sudanese Date (Phoenix dactylifera L.) Fruit Cultivars 1 2 2 Abdel Moneim E. Sulieman , Itimad A. Abd Elhafise , Awad M. Abdelrahim 1Department of Food Science and Technology, Faculty of Engineering and Technology, University of Gezira, Wad Medani, Sudan; 2Center of Biosciences and Biotechnology, Faculty of Engineering and Technology, University of Gezira, Wad Medani, Sudan. Email: moneim_ug@ Received June 25th, 2012; revised August 10th, 2012; accepted August 18th, 2012 ABSTRACT The date palm (Phoenix dactylifera L.) is one of mankind’s oldest cultivated plants. A date palm fruit is an important component of the diet in most of the hot arid and semi arid regions of the world. The present study aimed at investigat- ing the physical and chemical properties as well as microbiological characteristics of five date palm cultivars cultivated in Sudan. The results showed that the physical characteristics like fruit weight, length, flesh thickness, seed weight dif- fered significantly between the various cultivars. Although most of the cultivars had similar chemical components, there were some few differences. However, the microbiological analyses proved that no significant differences were found among the cultivars. Keywords: Amino Acids; Carbohydrates; Chemical Composition; Dates; Fatty Acids; Salmonella 1. Introduction This mainly due to the prevailing favorable climate for date cultivation, availability of abundant irrigation water The date palm (Phoenix dactylif