Physical characteristics and antioxidant assay of bael (Aegle marmelose) germplasm available in the south western region of Bangladesh

The research work was carried out to determine the physical characteristic and antioxidant assay of bael (Aegle marmelose) germplasm collected from the southwestern region of Bangladesh during April to September 2014. The experiment was carried out in a Completely Randomized Design (CRD) with three replications. A significant variation among the germplasm in relation to fruit characteristics was observed. The highest values were found in germplasm No. 5 in respect of total weight of fruit, fruit width, skin weight and pulp weight among the 7 selected germplasm. The lowest values were found in germplasm No. 1 in respect of total weight of fruit, fruit length, fruit width, skin weight, skin thickness, seed weight, number of seeds and pulp weight. The germplasm No. 3 gave the highest number of seeds and that was the lowest in germplasm No. 1. The average edible part was 68.82 % of and average non-edible part 32.22 %. The highest edible portion (75.72%) was recorded from germplasm No. 5 and the lowest (60.64%) from germplasm No.3. Antioxidant determination of both raw pulp sample and dried pulp sample carried out in terms of 50 % inhibition concentration (IC50). It was revealed from the study that raw pulp sample had comparatively lover IC50 values than dried pulp sample i.e. raw pulp sample contain comparatively higher antioxidant concentration than dried sample. For raw pulp sample highest IC50 value was found in germplasm No. 2 (92) and the lowest value was found in Germplasm No. 7 (25 µg/ml). For dried pulp sample the highest IC50 value was found in germplasm No. 2 (330 µg/ml) and the lowest value found in germplasm No. 7 (100 µg/ml). So, the highest antioxidant content was found in germplasm No. 7 because the IC50 values of germplasm No. 7 was the highest both in raw and dry conditions.

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