Sugars of pearl millet [Pennisetum americanum (L.) Leeke] grains

The sugars in the grains of nine pearl millet cultivars were fractionated through a Biogel column. Five different sugars‘(stachyose, raffinose, sucrose, glucose, and fructose) were identified. Sucrose was predominant in all the cultivars. Raffinose content was high as compared to other cereals, and maltose was absen

Groundnut quality report of work: January 1987-December 1988

The utility potential of groundnut (Arachis hypoqaea L.) has increased considerably as nova1 ways for its utilisation are being investigated..

Distribution of seed protein fractions and amino acids in different anatomical parts of chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.) and pigeonpea (Cajanus cajan L.)

Studies on protein fractionation in seed coat, embryo, cotyledons and whole seed were made to observe th e differences, if any, between chickpea and pigeonpea. Results indicated th a t globulin was the major fraction o f embryo and cotyledons o f these legumes. Seed-coat nitrogen was observed to be mostly comprised o f nonprotein nitrogen and glutelin fractions and thus differed from other components in both chickpea and pigeonpea. The albumin fraction o f cotyledons o f both crops had the highest concentration o f sulphur amino acids, methionine and cystine. Glutelin contained a considerably higher concentration o f methionine and cystine than did globulin in chickpea and pigeonpea. This suggests th a t lines with higher glutelin should be identified to improve their protein quality. The amino acid compositions o f different seed components did not show large differences between these two pulse crops

Grain Quality Of Pigeonpea

From the utilization point of view, the grain quality of pigeonpea is very important. The pro-gress that has been made in identifying cultivars containing high protein, the proceduresthat are being employed to determine the limiting amino acids, and the levels of some ofthe antinutritional factors that are present in pigeonpea have been described. Therelationship between the physicochemical characteristics and cooking time ofpigeonpea dhal samples is described. The results of a survey of consumers and millowners, that was conducted in major pigeonpea producing states of India are discusse

Methods for the Estimation of Protein in Pigeonpea [Cajanus cajan (L.) Millsp.] and the Relationship Between Whole Grain and Dhal Protein Contents

Proteindeterrninations of 172 grain and dhal (decorticated dry split seed) pigeonpea samples were carried out using three methods: (a) rnicrow Kjeldahl (MKJ), (b) colorimetric estimation of NH4+ with phenol hypochlorite reagents qsing the Technicon Auto-Analyser (TAA), and (c) dye-binding capacity (DBC) method using Acid Orange 12 dye: Protein perceIltages determined by the TAA and MKJ methods were highly correlated for whole-grain (0'948**) and dhal (0·967**) samples. The DBC method gave reliable results for dhal samples only. In the DBC procedure, higher protein percentages were recorded with smaller flour par'tides and longer mixing time, but different temperatures and durations of heating had no effect. Positive and highly significant correlations were obtained between the protein values of whole-grain and dhal samples in all the methods. Small irains gave a lower correlation between whole-grain and dhal protein content due to the observed negative c;:orrelation between grain size and percentage of seed~coat

Relationship between nonprotein nitrogen and total nitrogen in chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.) seed

Chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.) is a crop of economic importance and also an important source of protein in the diet of people in India as well as in other countries. Total protein content in the diet of people in the developing countries deserves special attention as large segments of people in these areas are reported to suffer from protein-calorie malnutrition. In the normal procedure for estimating protein intake, nitrogen content is obtained by the standard micro-Kjeldahl method and a factor is used to convert the figure into protein percentage. In this process, it is tactitly assumed that all the nitrogen is associated with the protein. But, in fact, this is not true. Therefore, any large variation in NPN content would affect the estimated protein of the sample and would consequently affect the estimated protein intake'in the diet. However, some of the NPN probably consists of amino acids and peptides which would be utilized. Attempts have been made to determine NPN in various crops (Bell, 1963; Boulter and Davis, 1968: Bhatty, 1972; Millerd, 1972). This study was conducted to determine the variation, if any, that might exist in chickpea samples and to identify the relationship between NPN and crude protein nitrogen in chickpea