Physical and Chemical Characterization of Spondias tuberosa Arruda Fruit from Different Caatinga Landscapes in Altinho-PE

Lins      Neto; Nivaldo      Peroni; Christine      M.C. Maranhao; Maria      I.S. Maciel; Ulysses      P.D. Albuquerque

Abstract

The “umbu” (Spondias tuberosa Arruda) is an important plant in the semi-arid regions of the rural communities in northeastern Brazil. Thus, the purpose of this study was to obtain the physical and chemical characteristics of Spondias tuberosa grown under different landscapes in order to identify promising materials for commercial use. Ten individual plants were selected from each of the region's landscape units (mountain, mountain base, pasture, crops and home garden), and 20 completely developed, yet unripe fruits were collected for determining the physical and chemical characteristics. It was verified that the S. tuberosa plants found in the pasture regions weighed more (with greater sizes near mountains and home gardens) (p<0.05) and had the second highest pulp yield (p>0.05). The same trend was observed for peel thickness (p>0.05). In relation to average soluble solids (SS) content values, plants obtained from home gardens were significantly different from all other plants taken from the other regions except for those found in cultivated areas (p>0.05). These plants also had the highest values of ascorbic acid and were statistically different from all of the other plants (p<0.05). The umbu plants from the pasture and home garden areas had the most important commercial characteristics, such as the chemical characteristics of the pulp, when compared to those from the other landscapes and had excellent SS and ascorbic acid values.

Keywords: Umbu, morphological variation, native fruit, semi-arid, pulp, ascorbic acid, sacred plants, Spondias genus, genotypes, germplasm.