Citrus Mineral Nutrition and Health Benefits: A Review

Citrus fruit is one of the most important fruits all over the world. Citrus fruits are essential sources of food and energy and play a critical role in supplementing healthy diets. They contain vitamins A, E, and B (thiamine, riboflavin, and niacin), minerals, and antioxidants such as flavonoids, vitamin C, phenolic compounds, and carotenoids as nutrients present in them. Mineral nutrients are essential nutrients found in many different types of plant and animal-based foods. Macro-minerals are required in large amounts while trace minerals are needed in minute quantities such as iron, zinc, and copper. Potassium is a vital nutrient in citrus fruit which regulates fruit size, fruit appearance, fruit color, and vitamin content. Fresh size and mass, percentage of rind and juice, soluble solids content (SS), titratable acidity (TA), SS/TA ratio, and industrial yield, expressed in kg of sugar per 100 kg of processed fruit or SS per box (40.8 kg) are used to evaluate fruit quality in citrus fruits. The amount of potassium below 0.4% affects tree development; otherwise, over an extensive range of variation does not generally affect plant growth. Potassium is one of the abundant elements in citrus fruits that affect both yield and quality. This chapter reviews the role of mineral nutrients in citrus production and the roles play in the human body

Geophysical Characterisation of Native Clay Deposits in Some Parts of Niger State, Nigeria

Clay minerals are among the world’s most important and useful industrial minerals. Conductance, transmissivity and corrosity are some physical parameters for determining quality clay. Four (4) clay deposit sites in Kaffin-Koro, Dutse, Dogon-Ruwa and Kushikoko were investigated to evaluate corrosivity, the longitudinal conductance and transmissivity to determine the clay quality. Electrical resistivity method employing Schlumberger electrode array was used to determine the thicknesses and depths of the subsurface strata while Interpex 1xD software was used to interpret the data. Three (3) to four (4) layer earth models were delineated. Kaffin-Koro and Dutse showed three layer models while Dogon-Ruwa and Kushikoko revealed four layers. Moderate clay content was found in Kaffin-Koro in the second layer with longitudinal conductance value of 0.4780 siemens and thickness 0.770m at depth of 1.17m Dogon-Ruwa also had moderate clay content in the third layer with conductance value of 0.237 siemens, depth of 2.43m and thickness 1.76m. Kushikoko had low clay deposit in the second layer with conductance 0.1810 siemens and thickness 2.73 m at 4.37 m while the clay deposit in Dutse appeared to be generally poor as the longitudinal conductance values of the top two layers were less than 0.1 siemens