Nutraceutical Values of Horticultural Crops and Products [Large type / Large print ed.] 9789385516979, 9385516973

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ISBN 938551697-3

9 789385 516979

Nutraceutical Values of Horticultural Crops and Products

Nutraceutical Values of Horticultural Crops and Products

Editors

Dhurendra Singh Head, Division of Crop Improvement ICAR-Central Institute for Arid Horticulture Bikaner - 334 006, Rajasthan

P. N. Sivalingam Senior Scientist (Agricultural Biotechnology) ICAR-National Institute of Biotic Stress Management Raipur - 493225, Chhattisgarh

Pinaki Acharyya Head and Associate Professor Department of Horticulturee Institute of Agricultural Science University of Calcutta - 700 019, West Bengal

S. R. Meena Senior Scientist (Agricultural Extension) Division of Crop Production ICAR-Centeral Institute for Arid Horticulture  Bikaner- 334 006, Rajasthan

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Preface

Epidemiological  studies  indicate  that  a  vegetarian  diet  rich  in  bioactive compounds imparts health benefits. For this reason, health organizations around the globe recommend the intake of several servings of fruits and vegetables each day. According  to  the  World  Health  Organization,  400-500  g of  fresh  fruit  and vegetables  (including berries,  legumes,  cruciferous and  green  leafy  vegetables) are recommended to reduce the risk of coronary heart diseases, stroke and high blood pressure. Unfortunately, large part of the population in both developed and developing countries fall short of these recommendations. Worldwide  attempts  on  development  of  nutraceuticals  through  intensive research  and  development  efforts  are  concentrated  in  developed  countries  and translated  in  to  commercial  ventures.  Nutraceuticals  are  based  on  bioactive compounds, which are plant constituents that are found abundantly in many crops and their availability is also genotype and environment specific. A wealth of scientific literature  from  numerous  types  of  epidemiological  and  case  controlled  studies have  identified  the  potential  relationships  between  bioactive  compounds  (or “functional”  components)  and  their  protective  effects  against  hypertension, cardiovascular disease, cancer, and other health conditions. The potential in this area to respond to consumer demands and address public health issues through diet, has brought about the impetus to do further research by government, industry and research institutes to substantiate the science behind the health benefits from plant constituents. Marker Assisted Selection hold great potential for plant breeding as it promises to  expedite  the  time  taken  to  produce  crop  varieties  with  desirable  characters. Progress  has  been  made  in  mapping  and  tagging  many  horticultural  important genes with  morphological, biochemical  and molecular  markers  which  form  the foundation for marker assisted selection in crops plants. They offer great scope for improving the efficiency of conventional plant breeding by carrying out selection not directly on the trait of interest but on molecular markers linked on those traits. Plant cell and callus  culture  systems have been  emerged most potential area of bio processing and production of useful metabolites of nutraceutical importance. These methods have been advanced through bioreactor technology.

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Nutraceutical Values of Horticultural Crops and Products

Research and development is critical to the rapidly developing field of functional foods  and  nutraceuticals.  Producers  want  new  opportunities  that  increase  farm income; processors want value-added food products, health ingredients and new uses  for  agricultural  production,  by-products  and  new  products  for  new  and existing markets. Consumers (worldwide) want increased assurance of the safety and quality of the food system and enhanced environmental performance of the agriculture and agri-food sector. Provinces and communities are seeking economic development opportunities for horticulture. This book will be helpful in better understanding, utilization of crop diversity, underutilized crops, and their residues and improvement in PHT and development of new functional food with greater use of bioactive compounds and other quality traits. Editors

Contents

Preface ........................................................................................................ v List of Contributors ...................................................................................... xi 1. Nutritional Value of Underutilized Fruits ................................................. 1 O.P. Pareek and Suneel Sharma

2. An Overview of Plant Biodiversity of Horticultural Crops in Arid Region .. 9 S.K. Sharma, B.D. Sharma and Dhurendra Singh

3. Nutraceutical Potential of Pomegranate, Jamun and Other Arid Zone Fruits ................................................................................... 17 Suresh Walia, Jasbir Singh and Charanjit Kaur

4. Improvement in Underutilized Fruit Crops Rich in Bioactive Compounds and their Economic Cultivation ......................................... 25 Sanjay Singh, A.K. Singh and K. Lata

5. Ethnobotanical Importance of Flora of Hot Arid Regions of India .......... 33 J.P. Singh and V.S. Rathore

6. Antioxidant Profile of Selected Asian Vegetables ................................. 41 Charanjit Kaur and Manender Singh

7. Improvement of Tomato for Lycopene Content ...................................... 45 S. Raja, S.F.D. Sousa and T.A. More

8. Perspectives of Germplasm Collection of Fruits and Vegetables for Nutraceuticals .............................................................. 55 S.K. Malik, D.C. Bhandari, Dhurendra Singh and Y.S. Rathi

9. Safe Conservation Technologies for Elite Plant Germplasm ................. 67 S.K. Malik, R. Chaudhury and Dhurendra Singh

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Nutraceutical Values of Horticultural Crops and Products

10. Vegetable-derived Nutraceuticals: Value Chain and Nutrition Security . 75 Suresh Walia, Ritu Sisodia and Manender Singh

11. Bioactive Compound Based Antioxidants: An Overview ........................ 81 Aparna Kuna and Meenakshi Chaudhary

12. Oxidative Damage in Living Systems and Use of Phytochemicals ....... 91 Shamina Azeez

13. Medicinal Plants for Diabetes Mellitus ............................................... 105 Aparna Kuna and S.R. Meena

14. Dietary Fiber: Importance, Types and Dietary Sources ...................... 109 Aparna Kuna and Shiva Parihar

15. Phytosterols as Functional Food ........................................................ 117 Aparna Kuna, Meenakshi Chaudhary and Shiva Parihar

16. Nutraceuticals in Fruits and Vegetables: Used and Availability .......... 127 Sanjay Kumar Singh, P.N. Sivalingam, Dhurendra Singh and Prakash Mehla

17. Bioactive Compounds Profile of Khejri ................................................ 137 Dhurendra Singh, M.G. Nair, P.N. Sivalingam and Pinaki Acharyya

18. Cactus Pear for Nutraceutical and Functional Food ........................... 145 Dhurendra Singh, P.N. Sivalingam, Pinaki Acharyya and S.R. Meena

19. Nutraceutical Value of Arid Fruits and Vegetables .............................. 157 Madhu Goyal, B.R. Choudhary and Ajay Kumar Verma

20. Functional Food Quality of Onion and Garlic ...................................... 167 Desh Raj Choudhary and Pankaj Kumar Kaswan and Ajay Kumar Verma

21. Scientific Validations of Herbal Plants of Arid Zone ............................ 171 Shekhar Bhargava

22. Antioxidant Rich Beverages from Under-utilized Temperate Horticultural Crops ............................................................................. 177 Hare Krishna, Sanjay Kumar Singh, P.N. Sivalingam and S.K. Sharma

23. Nano-technological Applications in Agriculture and Food ................... 185 Suresh Walia and Supradip Saha

24. Enhancement of Bioactive Compounds in Ziziphus Through in vitro Technique ............................................................................... 193 T.N. Nag, A.K. Chaturvedi and Pankaj Kumar

Contents

ix

25. in vitro Production of Secondary Metabolites ..................................... 201 Dhurendra Singh, P.N. Sivalingam and Kamlesh Kumar

26. Opportunities, Challenges and Strategies to Develop Functional Foods and Phytomedicines .............................................. 215 Shekhar Bhargava and D. Singh

27. Extraction, Analysis and Quality Control of Nutraceuticals and Other Bioactive Natural Products ....................................................... 221 Suresh Walia, Jitendra Kumar and N.A. Shakil

28. Quality Control on Industrial Processing of Antioxidants .................... 227 Charanjit Kaur and Mayank Kumar Rathi

29. Encapsulation of Nutraceutical Compounds for Functional Foods ................................................................................................. 229 K. Narsaiah

30. Packaging Technology for Processed Products ................................. 239 M. Manjunatha, S.R. Meena and Mayank Kumar Rathi

About the editors ............................................................................... 249

List of Contributors

Aparna Kuna Associate.  Professor  (Food  &  Nutrition),  Department  of  Food  and  Nutrition, ANGRAU Hyderabad Charnjit Kaur Principal Scientist, Division of Post Harvest Technology, Indian Agricultural Research Institute New Delhi -110012 Desh Raj Choudhary Ph. D. Scholar, Department of Vegetable Science, CCS HAU, Hisar, Haryana Dhurendra Singh Head, Division of Crop Improvement, ICAR-Central Institute for Arid Horticulture, Bikaner Rajasthan Hare Krishna Senior Scientist (Horticulture) ICAR-CIAH, Bikaner-334006, Rajasthan J P Singh Head, RRS, CAZRI, Jaisalmer K Narsaiah Senior  Scientist,  Agricultural  Structures  &  Environmental  Control  Division,  CIPHET Ludhiana-141 004, Punjab Madhu Goyal Head, Department of Food Nutrition, College of Home Science, SKRAU, Bikaner, Rajasthan Manender Singh Technical Officer, Food Security Mission, Department of Agriculture and Coopertation  Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare, New Delhi Meenakshi Chaudhary Professor and Manager, ATIC, SKRAU, Bikaner, Rajasthan

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Muraleedharan G Nair Professor,  Bioactive  Natural  Products  and  Phytoceuticals  Laboratory,  Department  of Horticulture, Michigan State University, East Lansing, Michigan, USA. (Ms) Shamina Azeez Principal  Scientist,  Biochemistry,  Division  of  Post  Harvest  Technology,  IIHR,  Hessargatta Bengaluru M Manjunatha Scientist, Central Institute of Post-Harvest Engineering and Technology (CIPHET) Ludhiana, 141 004, Punjab O P Pareek Former Director, Central Institute for Arid Horticulture, Bikaner-334006, Rajasthan Pinaki Acharyya Senior Scientist (Vegetable Science), ICAR-CIAH, Bikaner-334006, Rajasthan Pankaj Kumar Kaswan SRF, ICAR-Central Institute for Arid Horticulture, Bikaner, Rajasthan P N Sivalingam Senior Scientist (Agricultural Biotechnology),  ICAR-National Institute of Biotic Research, Raipur Chattisgarh Rekha Chaudhary Principal  Scientist  &  Incharge,  Tissue  Culture  and  Cryopreservation  Unit,  ICAR-National Bureau of Plant Genetic Resources, New Delhi S K Sharma Director, ICAR-Central Institute for Arid Horticulture, Bikaner, Rajasthan Suresh Walia Emeritus Scientist, Division of Agricultural Chemicals, Indian Agricultural Research Institute New Delhi-110012 S R Meena Senior Scientist (Agriculture Extension), ICAR-CIAH, Bikaner-334006, Rajasthan S K Malik Principal Scientist, Tissue Culture and Cryopreservation Unit, ICAR-National Bureau of Plant Genetic Resources, New Delhi Sanjay Singh Head,  Central  Horticultural  Experiment  Station  ICAR-CIAH,  Godhra-Vadodara  Highway Vejalpur-389340, Gujarat S Raja Senior Scientist, ICAR-CPRI, Milsington Estate, Shimla - 171001, Shimla

List of Contributors

xiii

S F D Sousa Associate Director, Bhabha Atomic Research Centre, Mumbai Shekhar Bhargava Head Department of Plant Breeding, SKRAU, Bikaner T A More Former Director, Central Institute for Arid Horticulture, Bikaner-334006, Rajasthan T N Nag Director, M N Institute of Applied Sciences, Bikaner Y S Rathi Technical Officer, Division of Germplasm Evaluation, ICAR-National Bureau of Plant Genetic Resources, New Delhi

Nutraceutical Values of Horticultural Crops and Products, pp 1-8 © 2018, New India Publishing Agency, New Delhi, India Editors: Dhurendra Singh, P. N. Sivalingam, Pinaki Acharyya and S.R. Meena

1 Nutritional Value of Underutilized Fruits O.P. Pareek and Suneel Sharma

Introduction Underutilized fruits provide nutrition and sustenance of life to the native communities and prevent widespread malnutrition, combat micronutrient deficiencies and other dietary deficiencies, as these are rich in vitamins, minerals, protein, carbohydrates and fats. Vitamins like A, E and minerals like calcium, magnesium and iron are abundantly available in these fruits, which help in building resistance against diseases. Many underutilized fruits contain more vitamin C and pro-vitamin A than the widely available commercial species. Consumption of these fruits by the rural people directly from the trees further maximizes vitamin intake. A healthy diet depends on a diversity of foods rich in vitamins and minerals. Whether wild, semi-domesticated or fully cultivated, the underutilized and neglected species are important for the well being of local communities. These fruit trees provide the essential supplements that ensure a balanced nutritious diet. Diet diversity is an extremely important element of nutritional well-being, in part because more essential nutrients are consumed and also because it improves the taste of staple foods thus encouraging greater consumption. One of the most common causes for dietary deficiencies appears to be the decreasing diversity of traditional diets. Underutilized fruits are common snack foods that provide vitamins, minerals, proteins, etc. and play important role in diets. Sugars and sweetners: Sugars are present in all the actively metabolising plant cells in the form of glucose and sucrose. The under-exploited fruits that yield sugar are black maple, sugar maple, sugar palm, wild date palm, honey palm or coquito palm (Jubaea chilensis), talipot palm, nipa palm, toddy palm, palmyra palm (Table 1).

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Table 1: Underutilized fruits as a source of sap to make sugar Fruit

Plant part

Black maple (A. nigrum) Honey palm, Coquito palm (Jubaea chilensis) Nipa palm (Nypa fruticans) Palmyra palm (Borassus flabellifer) Sugar maple (Acer saccharum) Sugar palm or gornut (Arenga pinnata) Talipot palm (Corypha umbraculifera) Toddy palm (Caryota urens) Wild date palm (Phoenix sylvestris)

Stem bark Trunk. Inflorescence Stem; 11-20 litres/tree/day Stem, bark 3-6 litres/tree/day 20 litres/tree/day for 3-4 months 20-27 litres/tree/day Stem

The chemical sweeteners, saccharin, cyclamate and aspartame are intense sweeteners with a sweetness that greatly exceeds the sweetness of sucrose. These are banned in some countries owing to negative side effects including neurotoxic, teratogenic and carcinogenic. sugar alcohols such as sorbitol, mannitol and inositol commonly occur in various fruits and are structurally related to monosaccharides and diasaccarides but with an alcohol (-oh) group attached. sorbitols are widely used foods and sweets especially for diabetics as these are less sweet than sucrose, are more slowly absorbed into the bloodstream and slow down tooth decay. the bulk sweeteners like mannitol and pinitol are considered useful in lowering blood sugar levels in diabetics. the sweeteners from plant parts are considered harmless. fruits of plants such as miracle berry (Sideroxylon dulcificum) contain the glycoprotein miraculin, which converts the sour taste into sweet. the fruit aril of katemfe (Thaumatococcus daniellii) contains thaumatin. Starch: It is one of the most important and widely occurring reserve food materials in green plants. It serves as a source of human food. Several underutilized fruits are rich sources that yield starch (Table 2). Table 2: Underutilized fruits as a source of starch Fruits

Plant part

Breadfruit European chestnut Ginkgo or Maiden hair tree Khajur(Phoenix farinifera) Moriche palm Peach palm Plantain Sago palm Sugar palm Talipot palm Toddy palm Water chestnut

Seeds Seeds Seeds Stem Trunk (60kg/tree) Fruits Fruits Stem (300kg/tree) Stem (75kg/tree) Stem (90kg /tree). Stem (100-150kg/tree). Seeds

Nutritional Value of Underutilized Fruits

3

Fats and Oils: Nutritionally fats and oils are important for absorption of vitamin A, D and E. Seeds and nuts are energy dense foods being rich in oils, fats and calories. Such foods are especially required for the growing children. The most important nut producing species are cashew nut, mogongo nut, marula nut, chilgoza nut, pecan nut, chestnut, black walnut, butter nut, pistachio, etc. Shea butter tree (45-60% fat), Acrocomia sclerocarpa (53.75%), Argania sideroxylon (50%), Madhuca longifolia (50%), babassu (60-70%), butter fruit and avocado are also rich energy foods. The underutilized fruit species that yield oil and fat either from their seeds or fruits are listed in Table 3. Depending upon the characteristic composition of the oil, it has to be processed for use as edible oil. Some of them are used as cooking media and as substitute for butter. The important fruits that yield oil are mahua, pilu, kokam, shea butter tree, piqui, Dacryodes edulis, Diploknema butyracea, macauba and tucuma. Table 3: Oil yielding underutilized fruit crops Fruit

Oil content (%)

Use

Argan tree

50 (seed)

Avocado Bornea tallow (Shorea spp)

3-30 (pulp) 50-70 (kernel) fat

Cohune nut or corozo Desert date Kokam Macauba Orbignya martiana, O. oleifera Orinoco nut Pataua, Seje

65.72 (kernel) 30 -55 (seed) 44 (kernel) 33 (pulp), 53.75 (kernel) 60-70 (kernel) 50 (kernel) 78.2 (pulp) 3 (kernel)

Cooking, substitute for cocoa butter Edible Substitute for cocoa butter. Cooking Cooking, medicines Cooking Cooking Cooking, margarine Medicines Oil similar to olive oil, cooking

Pejibaye Pequi Pilinut Rambutan

2.6-61.7 (pulp) 72.3 (pulp), 45 (kernel) 71 - 74 fat (kernel) 30-43 seed fat

Shea batter tree

45 - 60 fat (kernel)

Tucuma

Cooking Cooking Substitute for cocoa butter Substitute to coca better, Cooking, medicines Cooking

Proteins: Protein is essential for the growth and maintenance of human body but its deficiency is widespread in poverty-ridden areas of the world. Unlike most of the common fruits, some of the under-exploited fruits are rich in protein (Table 4), e.g. Brazil nut (14.3-17.4%), chironji (21.6%), Java almond (19.6%), European filbert (16.4-20 %), black walnut (20.5%),white walnut (24.6%), ginkgo (10.2-10.5%),

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marula nut, etc. The fruit of Jessenia bataua contains a high quality protein and oil. Similarly in humid zone of West Africa, some under-exploited fruit species are of exceptional nutritional value, e.g. the seeds of Ricinodendron africanum contain 28% protein and provide 570 calories/100g. Table 4: Protein content in some underutilized fruits and nuts Fruit/Nut

Protein (%)

African breadfruit, African boxwood (Treculia africana Decne.) 13.9 American beech (Fagus grandifolia Ehrh.) 20.8 American hazelnut, Filbert (Corylus Americana Walt.) 16.5 14.3-17.4 Brazil nut, Para nut (Bertholletia excelsa Humb. & Bonpl.) Butternut, White walnut, Oilnut (Juglans cinerea L.) 24.6 Chinese hairy chestnut (Castanea mollissima Blume) 11.9 Chironji, Cuddapah almond, Piyal (Buchanania lanzan Spreng.) 21.6 20.5 Eastern black walnut (Juglans nigra L.) English walnut (Juglans regia L.) 13.7-18.2 European chestnut, Spanish chestnut, Sweet chestnut (Castanea sativa Mill.) 6.1-7.5 Ginkgo, Maiden hair Tree (Ginkgo biloba L.) 10.2-10.5 16.4-20 Hazelnut, European filbert, Cobnut, Barcelona nut (Corylus avellana L.) Indian almond, Tropical almond (Terminalia catappa L.) 19.1-25.4 Indian lotus, Sacred lotus (Nelumbo nucifera Gaertn.) 16.6-24.2 Java almond, Canary nut (Canarium indicum L.) 19.6 Manindjo, Melinjo (Gnetum gnemon L.) 10.9 24.6 Marula nut, Kaffir plum (Sclerocarya caffra Sond.) Mogongo nut (Ricinodendron rautanenii Schinz) 7.9 (fruit), 38 (nut) Pilinut, Philippine nut (Canarium ovatum Engler) 12.2-15.6 Pine nut, Pinon (Pinus edulis Engelm.) 14.3 Pistachio nut (Pistacia vera L.) 19.3-20.4 12.2 Sweet chestnut, American chestnut (Castanea dentata (Marsh.) Borkh.) Water chestnut (Trapa natans L.) 12.2

Vitamins: Deficiency of vitamin A affects more than 100 million children less than 5 years old and causes one-third of deaths in this age group. It is the main cause of blindness in children in developing countries. The deficiency poses a serious threat in Indian diet particularly to children. The deficiency is widespread among some 40 million children, increasing their vulnerability to infection and death. Each year 500,000 children become blind due to lack of vitamin A. Vitamin A is abundant in underutilized fruits (Table 5) such as Astrocaryum aculeatum (51667 IU), Eugenia stipitata (12917 IU), Bactris gasipaes (7300 IU), persimmon (2710 IU), melingo leaves (10,889 IU), canistel (2000 IU), and Lucuma obovata (1500 IU). Barbados gooseberry (3215 IU), drumstick leaves (11,300 IU), cape gooseberry (1000- 5000 IU) are also rich sources of vitamin A. The widespread Vitamin E deficiency is making the people susceptible to several diseases.

Nutritional Value of Underutilized Fruits

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Table 5: Vitamin A content in some underutilized fruits Fruit Aman palm (Astrocaryum aculeatum Meyer) Araca-boi, Pichi (Eugenia stipitata Mc Vaugh) Barbados gooseberry (Pereskia aculeata Mill.) Cape gooseberry (Physalis peruviana L.) Canistel, Yellow sapote (Pouteria campechiana (Kunth) Baehni) Ceylon gooseberry (Dovyalis hebecarpa Warb.) Drumstick tree, Horse radish tree, Senjana (Moringa oleifera Lam.) Jackfruit (Artocarpus heterophyllus Lam.) Kumquat (Fortunella spp.) Mamey sapote (Pouteria sapota (Jacq.) H.E. Moore) Matisia (Matisia cordata Humb. et Bonpl.) Melinjo, leaves (Gnetum gnemon L.) Peach palm, Pejibaye (Bactris gasipaes (Kunth) Bailey) Persimmon (Diospyros kaki L.f.) Red mombin (Spondias purpurea L.) Surinam cherry (Eugenia uniflora L.) Tree tomato (Cyphomandra betacea (Cav.) Sendt.)

Vitamin A (IU) 51,667 12,917 3,215 1000-5000 533-2000 280-593 184 175-540 2,530 75-1108 1000-1760 10,889 7,300 2,000-2,710 370 1200-2000 150-540

Vitamin C (ascorbic acid) is needed to develop resistance against diseases and other ailments in human body. Some of the extremely rich sources of vitamin C (Table 6) are Barbados cherry (1500-5600 mg/100g pulp), camu-camu (29944000 mg) 100g pulp), sea buckthorn (600-2500 mg/100g pulp), Indian gooseberry (625 mg/100g pulp), Chinese jujube (188-544 mg/100g pulp), kiwi fruit (300 mg/ 100g pulp) and hips of Rosa rugosa (250-2900 mg/100g pulp). The fruits of Detarium senegalense in humid West Africa are rich in vitamin C (1000-2000 mg/ 100g). The content of vitamin C in Barbados cherry fruit is ten times higher than in kiwi fruit. The fruits of the baobab (360 mg/100g) are far richer than the oranges (57 mg/100g) in vitamin C. A variety of Chinese jujube has as high as 1000 mg/100g vitamin. Table 6: Ascorbic acid content in some underutilized fruits Fruits Barbados cherry (Malpighia glabra L.) Black persimmon, Black sapote (Diospyros ebenaster Retz.) Cabeludinha (Eugenia tomentosa Camb.) Camu-camu (Myrciaria dubia Mc Vaugh) Ceylon gooseberry (Dovyalis hebecarpa Warb.) Chinese jujube, Tsao (Ziziphus jujuba Mill.) Custard apple (Annona reticulata L.) Indian gooseberry, aonla (Emblica officinalis Gaertn.) Indian jujube, ber (Ziziphus mauritianna Lam.)

Ascorbic acid (mg/100g) 1500-5600 192 931 2994-4 000 102-194 188-544 41-44 500-625 39-166 (Contd.)

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Nutraceutical Values of Horticultural Crops and Products

(Contd.) Fruits Jaboticaba (Myrciaria cauliflora Berg) Kiwi fruit, Chinese gooseberry (Actinidia chinensis Planch) Kumquat (Fortunella spp.) Manila tamarind (Pithecellobium dulce (Roxb.) Benth.) Maprang (Bouea macrophylla Griffith) Marula nut, Kaffir plum (Sclerocarya caffra Sond.) Muntingia (Muntingia calabura L.) Nance, Golden spoon (Byrsonima crassifolia (L.) Kunth) Passionfruit (Passiflora edulis Sims.) Plum mango (Bouea oppositifolia (Roxb.) Meissner) Red cattly guava, Strawberry guava (Psidium cattleianum Sabine) Red mombin, Purple mombin (Spondias purpurea L.) Rose hips (Rosa rugosa Thunb.) Seabuckthorn (Hippophae rhamnoides L.) Sugar apple (Annona squamosa L.) Surinam cherry (Eugenia uniflora L.) Yellow mombin, Hog plum (Spondias mombin L.)

Ascorbic acid (mg/100g) 700-2400 300 52-151 138 75 540 80-90 90-240 35-50 60-80 25-50 648 250-2900 600-2500 42 25-44 464

Minerals: Calcium and iron are important minerals required for healthy living. Calcium gives strength and firmness to the bones, forms healthy teeth and is also necessary for clotting of blood and movement of muscles. Osteomalacia and bone deformation are caused as a result of calcium deficiency. The rich sources of calcium are tamarind (0.74%), karonda (0.16%), wood apple (0.13%), bael (0.09%), dates (0.07%) and aonla (0.05%). Iron is essential for the development of blood and body cells. Lack of iron is the most widespread nutritional disorder in the body, affecting nearly 2000 million people. The deficiency results in an estimated 20 percent maternal deaths in developing countries. Karonda (39.1%) and dates (10.6%) are rich sources of iron. Medicinal uses: Man has utilized plants as natural source of medicine for the treatment of several diseases since times immemorial. These have been the basis of traditional medicine in many countries which have continued to be of vital importance. It is has been estimated that about 80 percent of the World’s population relies on the traditional systems for primary health care. A large number of underutilized fruit species are known to possess high medicinal values and are recommended for therapeutic treatment (Table 7).

Nutritional Value of Underutilized Fruits

7

Table 7: Underutilized fruits as a source of medicine Species

Medicinal value

Bael

Fruits are used as astrigent, digestive, stomachic and in diarrhoea. Roots are said to improve appetite. They are one of the ingredients of dasamula drug in Ayurveda. Fruit pulp and leaves are aperient, astringent, demulcent diuretic and diaphoretic. Fruit pulp is used in dropsy, fever, piles, diarrhoea and fevers. It is one of the triphala in Ayurvedic medicine. Roots hinder the docking of the AIDS virus on human cells. Seeds are useful in treatment of coughs and hepatitis. Fruits are laxative, febrifuge, antidysentric, antiphlogistic. Fruit pulp is laxative and used as dentrifice to cure bleeding and ulceration of gums and as an anthelmintic. It is one of the triphala in Ayurvedic medicine. Fruits are antidysentric and vermifuge. Fruit pulp is used as anthelmintic and purgative. Bark and oil from the seeds are used to treat cuts and wounds and skin diseases. Oil obtained from seeds is used in gout and acute rheumatism. Fruit is used for biliousness and in liver complaints. Gamboge collected by making incision in the bark is used as hydragogue, cathartic and for producing purging and vomiting. Progesterone can be extracted from the fruits and used to treat cerebro-vascular disease, cerebrum functional failure, coronary heart disease and angina pectoris. Fruit is astringent, anthelmintic, demulcent, expectorant and used in urinary infections. Bark is febrifuge, used in dyspepsia, fever and in gripes. Root yields “berberine”, which can be obtained from its salts. It is used as tonic, stomachic, diaphoretic, antiperiodic, etc. Fruit is cooling, diuretic and laxative. Dried fruit is useful in haemorrhage, diarrhoea and dysentery, anaemia, jaundice, dyspepsia and cough. Fruit is laxative, anodyne, aphordisiac tonic. Seeds are antidiarrhoeal, allay thirst and used in pregnancy. Fruits are carminative, diuretic and deobstruent. Fruit is stomachic, carminative, diuretic. Seed is antidiabetic. Leaves are used in scabies, skin diseases. Root bark is used for healing wounds. Bark is used for its astringent stimulant, carminative and resolvent properties. Useful remedy for fever, catarrh, asthma, diarrhoea, typhoid, dysentery. Fruits are astringent and antiscorbutic. Roots are stomachic and anthelmintic. Leaves are febrifuge and used in intermittent fever.

Baobab Belleric myrobalan Black mulberry Bitter kola (Garcinia kola) Carambola Chebulic myrobalan Custard apple Desert date Drumstick tree Flacourtia jangomas Garcinia hanburyi Ginkgo Gonda Indian berberry (Berberis aristata) Indian gooseberry Indian jujube Indian mustard tree Jamun Jharber Kaiphal (Myrica esculenta) Karonda

(Contd.)

8

Nutraceutical Values of Horticultural Crops and Products

Species

Medicinal Value

Ker

Fruits are astringent, useful in cardiac trouble and biliousness. Stems are used in jaundice and as a poultice for swelling. Stem, bark, leaves and fruits are used for removing hair. Bark is tonic, astringent, given in diarrhoea. Seed is demulcent, anthelmintic, used in leprosy. Fruits are cooling, emollient, demulcent, antisorbutic. Bark is antidiabetic, astrigent, emollient and used in tonsilitis, and gum troubles. Flowers are demulcent, laxative, and stimulant, anthelmintic and used as antidote for snakebite, fish poison and as sedative. Seed oil is anticephalalgic, emetic and used in skin disease, piles, pneumonia and colic. Bark is used in diarrhoea. Seeds yield castanospermine which halts/checks AIDS virus.

Khejri Khirni Kokam Mahua

Marula nut Moreton bay chestnut (Castanospermum australe) Mulberry

Leaves are hypoglycemic, diaphoretic and emollient, Fruit is laxative, febrifuge, used in some throat dyspepsia and melancholic. Phalsa Fruit is astringent, cooling and stomachic. Pomegranate Fruit rind is used for diarrhoea and dysentery. Fruit juice is used in inflammation, heart and stomach diseases. Prickly pear Fruits are used in treatment of hypoglycemia, diabetes, high blood cholesterol and obesity. Rambutan Roots are used in decoctions for treating fever, fruit for digestive problems and leaves in poultices for headache. Sea buckthorn Sea buckthorn juice is a healthy drink. Seed is used for piles, burns, scald, ulcers, mucositis. Sweetsop Fruits are sedative, antibilious, antiemetic, stimulant and expectorant. Tamarind Fruit pulp is refrigerant, laxative, carminative, febrifuge and useful in malaria. Vitex doniana Roots are used as a poultice on swelling. West African ebony Roots blend with other species to treat leprosy. Western yew (Taxus brevifolia) Bark yields “taxol”, an anti-cancer agent. Wild custard apple Fruits are used as a poultice for lice. Wild date palm Fruit is analgesic and anthelmintic, aphrodisiac and diuretic. Wood apple Fruit is astringent, stomachic and stimulant, leaves are carminative, bark is antibilious. Ziziphus spinachristi Roots are used in gonorrhea.

References Pareek, O. P. and Suneel Sharma 2009. Underutilized Fruits and Nuts.Vol. 1. Diversity and Utilization & Fruits of Subtropical and Temperate Region. Aavishkar Publishers, Distributors, Jaipur, India. Pp.366. Pareek, O. P. and Suneel Sharma 2009.Underutilized Fruits and Nuts.Vol. 2.Fruits of Tropical Region. Aavishkar Publishers, Distributors, Jaipur, India. Pp.342.

Nutraceutical Values of Horticultural Crops and Products, pp 9­16 © 2018, New India Publishing Agency, New Delhi, India Editors: Dhurendra Singh, P. N. Sivalingam, Pinaki Acharyya and S.R. Meena

2 An Overview of Plant Biodiversity of Horticultural Crops in Arid Region S.K. Sharma, B.D. Sharma and D. Singh

Introduction The hot arid regions are spread over about 31.7 million ha area mainly in the States of Rajasthan, Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh, Punjab and Haryana, which inhabit on an average 61 persons per square km making up a population of nearly 20 million people. The Indian arid zone is characterized by high temperature and low and variable precipitation which limit the scope for high horticultural productivity. However, these conditions greatly favour development of high quality production in number of fruits such as date palm, ber, pomegranate, citrus, aonla, bael, grapes, guava and in vegetables such as cucurbitaceous crops, spices and some medicinal plants. The optimized technologies and inputs could increase the existing low productivity. It is now realized that there is a limited scope for quantum jump in fruit and vegetable production in the traditional production areas. The amelioration of the extreme conditions is also considered vital for life support to the inhabitants of this area. The recent aware­ness regarding the potential of these ecologically fragile lands for production of quality horticultural produce has not only opened up scope for providing economic sustenance for the people of this region, but also for bringing new areas to increase production through horticulture. The arid horticultural crops have developed and/or modified their organs to perform certain vital physiological functions such as strong deep root system (ber, bael, aonla, wood apple, jamun, etc.), synchronize their flowering and fruit development with the season of moisture availability (ker, lasora, aonla, pilu, etc.) and other xerophytic characters i.e. leaf shedding in summer (ber), scanty foliage (ker), spiny cladode (cactus pear), mucilaginous sap in plant part (ker, gonda, pilu, bael, etc.), sunken stomata and fur/ hairiness and waxy coating on the leaf surface (phalsa, ber, gonad, fig, etc.) thorny nature, and selective or reduced absorption of cation (Na+) and anions (Cl­, SO4–) for survival under adverse arid conditions. Therefore, cultivation of suitable species of fruit and vegetables in the arid areas will increase the sustenance of the inhabitants and

10

Nutraceutical Values of Horticultural Crops and Products

provide the alternate sources of income through development of nurseries, small scale industries and exports. Epidemiological studies indicate that a diet rich in fruits and vegetables imparts health benefits. For this reason, health organizations around the globe recommend the intake of several servings of fruits and vegetables each day. According to the World Health Organization, 400­500 g of fresh fruit and vegetables (including berries, green leafy and cruciferous vegetables and legumes) is recommended to reduce the risk of coronary heart disease, stroke and high blood pressure. Unfortunately, large parts of the population in both developed and developing countries fall short of these recommendations. Wordlwide attempts on development of nutraceuticals through intensive research and development efforts are concentrated in developed countries and translated in to commercial ventures. Global market for nutraceuticals is projected to surpass US$187 billion in sales by 2010. In India, the market for functional foods is targeted to cross Rs 17,000 crore in the next four years. Nutraceuticals are based on bioactive plant constituents found abundantly in fruits, vegetables, other horticultural crops including generally regarded as safe (GRAS) plants. However, the availability of these bioactives in plants is genotypical and dictates by multitudes of environmental factors. A wealth of scientific literature from numerous epidemiological and case controlled studies have identified the potential relationships between bioactive compounds (or “functional” components) and their protective effects against hypertension, cardiovascular disease, cancer, and other adverse health conditions. The potential in this area to respond to consumer demands and address public health issues through diet is tremendous and brought the government, industry and research institutes in India to further understand the science behind the health benefits of these plant constituents. This will lead to new opportunities for industries and farmers together and contributes to local, state and national economy by yielding proven health­beneficial products to consumers. Bioactive compounds vary widely in chemical structure and function. For example, plant phenolics are a large and diverse group of phenolic compounds present in all plants which include cathechins, isoflavones, anthocyanins and phenolic acids with potent antioxidant properties. Carotenoids such as lycopene in tomatoes and fruits are thought to protect against prostrate and other cancers. Similarly, organosulfur compounds in garlic and onions, isothiocyanates in cruciferous vegetables, and monoterpenes in citrus fruits, cherries and herbs have shown anticarcinogenic and cardioprotective effects in experimental models. Another class of bioactive compounds is saponins in ber, terpenoids in citrus, glucosinolates in cruciferous vegetables, lignans present in flaxseed, barley, soy, berries, and other fruit/vegetables and tannins found in various plants, ber, lasora, ker, aonla and date palm.

An Overview of Plant Biodiversity of Horticultural Crops in Arid Region

11

Area and Production India is the second largest producer of fruits in the world with an annual production of 49.30 million tonnes from an area of 4.96 million hectares and contributing 10 per cent of the production of fruits in the world. In arid region, considerable area has come up under fruits like aonla, ber, pomegranate, anona, fig and phalsa in different parts of the country, which had negligible spread in the recent past. Ber has spread from northern states to the western and southern India from a mere 12000 ha in 1978 to nearly 86,000 ha in 2004­2005 with a production of about 0.90 million tonnes. Similarly, the area under pomegranate has also leaped to over 1.25 lakh ha. Likewise aonla, presently cultivated on 50,000 ha with the production of 2,50,000 tonnes. This has become possible as a result of the research and developmental efforts. The All India Coordinated Research Project on Arid Zone Fruits initiated since the IVth Five Year Plan lead to the development of new varieties and agro­techniques for fruit crops. Majority of Indian vegetable farmers are small scale cultivators. Post WTO scenario is enforcing stringent demands on vegetable growers and processors in India. India continues to be the second largest producer (next to China) of vegetables in the world with 101.43 million tonnes from an area of 67.55 million hectares. India contributes about 13 per cent of the world’s vegetable production and occupies first position in the production of cauliflower, second in onion and third in cabbage in the world. In the past three decade, India made a quantum jump in vegetable production, but this is much less than our total requirement of vegetables @ 300 g/day/person for the balanced diet. There is challenge to achieve the target of 250 million tonnes of vegetable production to meet the requirement by 2020. The vegetable seed industry is very much developed in the past decade, but the focus is primarily on a few vegetables like onion, tomato, chilli, bell pepper and okra. Public sector should come forward for diversification to specialized indigenous vegetables in each state for domestic market as well as for export. Under­utilized horticultural crops are another area which needs attention. There is need to develop large orchards of under­utilized fruits like jamun, mahua, chironji, rambutan, fig, kokam and the like for commercial exploitation both for internal consumption and export. Arid zone fruits like aonla, ber and the like, the possibility of expanding cultivation and export of indigenous fruits like bael, phalsa, wood apple, mulberry, etc. need to be explored. Some of the fruits are of high nutritive value and are rich in antioxidants for health conscious populace of modern world. Varieties were also identified in flowers and medicinal and aromatic plants through researches conducted in different parts of the country. The vast land resources offer great opportunity for horticultural development in the Indian arid zone which is spread over nearly 31.7 million ha area of which 41.5 per cent is arable and 19 per cent is culturable wasteland (Table 1).

12

Nutraceutical Values of Horticultural Crops and Products

Table1 Area under arid region in India States

Total area (m ha)

Arable area (m ha)

Culturable wasteland (m ha)

Rajasthan Gujarat Punjab Haryana Peninsular India

19.60 6.20 1.50 1.30 3.10

9.20 0.02 1.05 1.15 1.63

4.20 1.66 0.03 0.02 9.11

Total

31.70

13.05

15.02

Varied agro­climates of India offer the best opportunity to export produces in the off­season of importing countries. Like mango, grapes and pomegranate can also be harvested in India at such a time when they are not harvested anywhere in the world. Production zone could be identified for production of these novel crops.

Prospects of Arid Horticulture The region receives high solar radiation. Multistory cropping system models based on fruit trees can be developed to uti­lize this valuable resource for production of quality fruits. Vegetables and medicinal and aromatic plants can be a component of such models. In high radiation zone, which also has low humidity, the attack of insect pests and diseases are very low. However, conditions of high radiation and temperature coupled with low humidity cause water stress in plants owing great water losses from soil and plant surface but by following proper soil and water management techniques, optimum produc­tivity can be maintained. The high summation of heat units especially during the long summer is a valuable resource for development of high total soluble solids in fruit crops such as date palm, grape, etc. Besides, the conditions of high temperature and low humidity help in solar drying of fruits and vegetables. The practice is already common for drying pods of khejri(sangri) and fruits of kachri, round gourd, and fruits of ber and date palm. The sharp fluctuations in day and night temperatures during autumn, spring and summer help in development of sweetness in sweet orange, kinnow, ber and date palm, flesh colour and sweetness in pomegranate arils and mateera pulp.

Selection of Horticultural Crops and their Varieties While selection of fruit crops for dry land horticulture, one of the basic requirements is that those crops who complete their vegetative growth and reproductive phase during the period of maximum moisture availability. The fruit such as ber, guava, pomegranate, custard apple, aonla and sour lime, conform to this prerequisite. Among vegetable crops, the hardiest types belong to the cucurbitaceous and solanaceous groups. Cowpea, cluster bean and okra are also very drought hardy. In these crops also, there is need to select the most drought

An Overview of Plant Biodiversity of Horticultural Crops in Arid Region

13

hardy cultivars for rain fed production. Varieties were also identified in fruits, vegetables, flowers and medicinal and aromatic plants through researches conducted in different parts of the country. The important crops and cultivars which can be grown successfully in hot arid region are presented in table 2. Table 2: Promising crops and their cultivars of fruits and vegetables Crops

Cultivar

Fruits Aonla Bael Ber Custard apple Date palm Fig Guava Pomegranate

Kanchan, Krishna, Balwant, NA­6, NA ­7, NA­10 NB­5, NB­9, Pant Aparna, Pant Suwarna Gola, Mundia, Kaithali, Banarasi Karaka, Early Umran Balanagar, Mammoth, Island, Gem, Red Sitaphal, Arka Sahan Halawy, Barhee, Medzool, Khuneiji Poona Fig, Conadria, Excel, Black Ischia Sardar, Allahabad Safeda, Kohir Safed, Safed Jam, Chittidar G­137,GKVK­1, Mridula, Bhagawa, Phule Arakta, Ruby, Jalore seedless Kalipatti, Cricket Ball PKM ­1, Pratisthan, Yogeshwari Blood Red Malta, Mosambi, Valencia

Sapota Tamarind Sweet orange Vegetables Cluster bean Cowpea Chilli Bottle gourd

Pusa Navbahar, Durga Bahar, HBG 4, ARG 80 Pusa Dofasali, Pusa Phalguni, Pusa Rituraj, Pusa Barsati Pusa Jwala, Mathania Pusa Summer Prolific Round, Pusa Summer Prolific Long, Pusa Meghdoot, Pusa Manjari Tonk melon, Durgapura Madhu

Muskmelon

Plant propagation Techniques for propagation of ber, pomegranate, fig, custard apple, date palm and other fruit crops have also been standardized details are presented in Table 3. Table 3: Standardized methods of propagation Name of fruits

Aonla Bael Ber Custard apple Date palm Fig Grape

Methods of propagation Standardization

Commercial

Budding (patch, shield) Root cutting, budding, (patch and shield), air layering Cutting, air layering, budding, (T, I, ring and forkert) Soft wood grafting Seed, Offshoots Cutting, budding and air layering Hard wood stem cutting, chip budding, layering and micro propagation

Patch budding Patch budding Ring and T­budding T­budding, inarching, Offshoots Hard wood cuttings Hard wood stem cuttings (Contd.)

14

Nutraceutical Values of Horticultural Crops and Products

(Contd.) Name of fruits

Guava Jamun Karonda Phalsa Pomegranate

Methods of propagation Standardization

Commercial

Cutting, air layering and budding Seed and budding Seeds, soft wood stem cuttings in mist Seeds and cutting Budding (chip, patch and forkert) air layering, inarching

Stooling, Inarching, air layering Shield and patch budding Seeds, air layering Seeds Hardwood stem cuttings and air layering

The suitable rootstock in different fruit crops has also been standardized to achieve the optimum productivity of the crops. The details for each crop are given in Table 4. Table 4: Rootstocks of arid fruit crops Fruit crops

Rootstocks

Distinguishing features

Ber Custard apple Fig Bael Guava

Ziziphus nummularia,Ziziphus rotundifolia Annona glabra (pond apple) Ficus glomerata Seedling Psidium friedrichsthalianum, Psidium friedrichsthalianum var. lucidum P. pumilum Syzigium fruticosum

Dwarfing Dwarfing Nematode resistant ­ Dwarfing and wilt resistant Wilt resistant Most dwarfing Termite resistant

Jamun

Nutritional security Under Indian scenario, the quality of life particularly of urban mass is increasing with the increase in per capita availability of fruits, vegetable, food gain, etc. However, the situation of rural mass particularly under hot and cold arid zones is still alarming. Further more the population explosion has nullified the benefits of higher production of these commodities. Therefore, there is an urgent need to reduce population growth and satisfactory measures should be adopted to increase the production of arid horticultural crops under these resource poor situations. There is pressure of urbanization on fertile land, hence alternative seems to utilize degraded lands for fruit production by adopting site specific agro­techniques on one hand and switching over to vegetables, flowers, fruits and livestock production intensively on fertile lands for better returns. Diminishing per capita availability of land and water resources, expanding biotic and abiotic stresses, forest and environmental degradation, further intensifies the challenge. Obviously, a lot has to be done to improve productivity through coverage of larger areas and augmented inputs like water, pesticides, fertilizers, bio­fertilizers, labour, etc. The arid fruits are not only hardy in nature but they are also very nutritious. The fruits that are rich in Vitamin C are aonla, ber, Chinese jujube, etc. The rich sources of calcium are tamarind, wood apple, bael, karonda, date palm and aonla,

An Overview of Plant Biodiversity of Horticultural Crops in Arid Region

15

which gives strength and firmness to bones, forms healthy teeth and is also necessary for clotting of blood and movement of muscles. Iron is essential for the development for the blood and body cells, the fruit like karonda, phalsa, date palm etc. are rich source of iron. The compositions of some important arid fruit are given in Table 5. Table 5: Nutritional composition of some important arid fruits (based on per 100 g edible portion) Fruit

Water Protein Fat Carbo­ Calcium Phosphorus Iron Vitamin Ascorbic (g) (g) (g) hydrate (g) (mg) (mg) (mg) A (IU) acid (mg)

1 Custard apple Aonla Jungle jalebi Phalsa

2 69.75 77.7­ 81.2 83.0

71.7­ 80.8 Barbados 81.9­ Cherry, 92 Cactus pear 84­87 Pomegranate 72.9­ 80 Pilu 78 Jamun 83.7­ 85.8 Tamarind 17.8­ 35.8 Indian jujube 70.2 Jharber 80 Date palm 2.0

4

6

8

9

10

11

15

1.53­ 0.26­ 2.38 1.10 0.07­ 0.1­ 0.5 0.2 1.0 0.1

19­25

23.6­ 55.3 26.0

34­42

17

500­625

—

0.28­ 1.34 0.48­ 0.5 —

5­7

15­ 21.8 15.5

19.4­ 44.7 12.5­ 20 —

—

—

1.3­ 0.90­ 1.58 1.82 0.4­ 0.18­ 1.8 0.3 0.3 0.1 0.05­ 0.1­ 1.6 0.9 6.0 2.0 0.7 0.15­ 0.3 2­3 0.6

14.78

129

39

3.1

800

22

6.98­ 14.0 10.1 14.5­ 19.6 76 14­16

8.2­ 34.6 0.02 3­12

16.2­ 37.5 0.14 8­37

630 8­15

41.6­ 61.4 27.6 93 —

34­94

167 15­ 16.2 34­78

29 60 8.0

37 120 0.2

1.2 2.0 0.03

5

0.2 1.0 0.02

0.17­ 20­ 1.11 1000 — — 0.7­1.2 trace 8.0 1.2­ 1.62 0.2­ 0.9 0.7 7.0 0.07

— 80

4500­ 4700 21­22 4­8

—

2.0 5.7­ 18 44

40 — —

69 88 200

Besids these, crops are amendable to value addition (Table 6) and suitable for export being novel and unique since such crops are not available in other parts of the World. Therefore, arid horticulture has tremendous scope for growth. Table 6: Value added products from various arid fruit crops Fruit

Products

Aonla

Candy, Jam, Syrup, Sweets, Pickle, Chutney, Squash, Ayurvedic medicines such as chavanprsh, Trifla, Amla ki Rasayan and Powder. Candy, Dried ber, Squash. Juice, Squash, Wine etc,. Juice, Squash, Dried seeds as ‘Anardana’. Jelly, Chutney, Squash. Mainly eaten fresh, Jam, Jelly, Paste etc,. (Contd.)

Ber Custard apple Pomegranate Wood apple Guava

16

Nutraceutical Values of Horticultural Crops and Products

(Contd.) Fruit

Products

Tamarind Date palm Fig Jamun Karonda Bael Mahua

Juice, Pulp. Pulp is suitable for making ‘Chhuhara’, Syrup. Dried fig. Jelly, Squash, Vinegar, Wine. Pickle, Chutney, Candy, Syrup and Jelly. Candy, Squash, Jam Powder. Alcohol, Bakery products, Vinegar and Syrup after fermentation may be used as cattle feed. Pulp dry husk for making alcohol. Pickle. Pickle.

Ker Lasora

Employment generation Owing to long slack seasons and low intensity of cropping, there is considerable surplus family labour available in the arid zone farming communities, which can be put to use for increasing production of horticultural crops. Consultancy could be provided to development functionaries of Government and Non­Government organizations as well interested growers/entrepreneurs for field application of the technologies through organizing various training programmes. In due course consultancy could also be provided for establishment of seeds and plant multiplication units’ intensive field production units for field productions as well as post harvest utilization infrastructure and research and technological education organizations.

Further Reading Magar, S. S and Firke, D. 1994. Water management of fruit crops under limited water supply. Shetkari. Pp. 17­21. Pareek, O. P. 1982. Proceedings of workshop on Problems of deserts in India, Jaipur, 16­18 September 1975. Geological Society of India, Calcutta, Misc. Publ. No. 49: 313­320. Pareek, O. P. 1993. Water management in fruit crops. In: Advances in Horticulture, Vol. 2. MPH, New Delhi (Eds: Chadha, K. L. and Pareek, O. P.) pp. 726­761, Pareek, O. P. and Suneel Sharma 2009. Underutilized Fruits and Nuts.Vol. 1.Diversity and Utilization & Fruits of Subtropical and Temperate Region. Aavishkar Publishers, Distributors, Jaipur, India. Pp.366. Pareek, O. P. and Suneel Sharma 2009. Underutilized Fruits and Nuts.Vol. 2.Fruits of Tropical Region.Aavishkar Publishers, Distributors, Jaipur, India. Pp.342. Sivanappan, R. K. 1998. Status and perspective of micro­irrigation research in India. In: proceeding of the National Seminar on Micro­Irrigation Research in India: Status and Perspectives for the 21st Century, Bhubaneswar, July 27­28, 1998. Saroj, P. L. and Awasthi, O. P. 2006. Advances in Arid Horticulture : Vol: II: Production Technology of Arid and Semiarid Fruits. Published by International Book Distributing Co, Lucknow.

Nutraceutical Values of Horticultural Crops and Products, pp 17-24 © 2018, New India Publishing Agency, New Delhi, India Editors: Dhurendra Singh, P. N. Sivalingam, Pinaki Acharyya and  S.R. Meena

3 Nutraceutical Potential of Pomegranate Jamun and Other Arid Zone Fruits Suresh Walia, Jasbir Singh and Charanjit Kaur

Introduction While  Indian  agriculture  has  evolved  to  provide  food  to  our  ever  growing population,  nutrition  security  still  remains  a  distant  dream.  Fruits  an  important component  of  a  healthy  diet,  are  rich  source  of  nutraceuticals.  Such  health components comprising of flavonoides, carotenoides, vitamins, anthocyanins and other polyphenolics provide health benefits of disease prevention through antioxidant activity and reduced disease risks. Of late there has been an explosion of consumer interest  in  the  health  enhancing  role  of  physiologically-active  specific  food components commonly referred to as nutraceuticals and functional foods. The  term  ‘nutraceutical’  was  first  coined  by  an American  doctor  Stephen DeFelice  in  the  1990s.  Today,  healthcare  market  is  flooded  with  different  new nutraceutical  related  terminologies  like,  cosmeceuticals,  biopharmaceuticals, herbaceuticals, ayuraceuticals, dermaceuticals, nutri-cosmetics etc. A review  of 200 epidemiological studies showed that  cancer  risk in people consuming diets high  in  fruits  was  only  one-half  that  in  those  consuming  few  of  these  foods. Increased acceptance and use of nutraceuticals and functional foods in the western world has resulted in increased export of such commodities from these countries. World-wide  market  for  nutraceuticals  and  medicinal  plant  products  today  has surpassed  US  $  15  billion  with  the  top  markets  being  United  States  (US  $  3 billion), Europe (US$ 2.4 billion), Japan (US$ 2.7 billion) and Asia (US$ 2.7 billion). It is increasing at the rate of 10% per annum. USA holds a significant share (35%) in world nutraceutical market followed by  Japan (25%). As per the US estimates, the  market  for  natural  food  colorants  is  estimated  at  US  $  500  million  out  of which anthocyanin and lutein together account for US $ 200 millions. Other large, emerging  international  markets  in  south  and  southeast Asia  and  mid-east  gulf countries include UAE, Qatar, Oman and Kuwait. At present nutraceuticals and food supplement based functional foods account for trade worth US$ 170 billions and India’s share in this market is less than one per cent.

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Indian nutraceutical market as OTC market is in the infant stage. It is estimated around Rs 45000 cr of which nutraceutical also referred to as fast moving health goods  (FMHG)  is  having  a  6%  share  (2700  crores).  By  2010,  the  dietary supplement  market  in  India  alone  is  estimated  to  reach  Rs  5,267  crore  at  a tremendous growth rate of 16%. With increasing awareness about health and the risk of lifestyle disorders, consumers consider nutraceuticals as effective products and in next five  years,  it is  likely to exceed significantly. According to Cygnus estimates, nutraceuticals market in 2007 was INR18.75 billion and is expected to grow at the rate of 20% to achieve a market size of INR 27 billion in 2009. Seeing the growth in world nutraceutical market and potential for India, many multinational and Indian pharmaceutical firms are venturing into  this field. Domestic players like Reliance Wellness, Dabur, Avesthagen, Himalaya, Ranbaxy Laboratories, Dr Reddy’s  Laboratories,  Wockhardt, Amway,  Parry  Nutraceuticals,  GNC  India, Glenmark  and  Guardian  Lifecare  have  focused  on  growing  large  portfolios  of nutraceutical  products. Due  to  clinical  and  scientific  evidence  of  health  benefits  and  safety,  the worldwide growth opportunities for nutraceutical ingredients is likely to emerge in  functional  food  and  beverage  additives  like  lutein,  lycopene,  carotenoids, anthocyanins, soy isoflavone, polyphenolics, omega-3 fatty acids, probiotics, sterol esters;  the  essential  minerals;  and  the  herbal  extracts  like  garlic  and  green  tea. Among these natural formulations of antioxidants will register the strongest growth based on their natural advantages over synthetic compounds. As strong economic growth leads to the extensive upgradation and diversification of food, beverage and  pharmaceutical  production  capabilities,  India  is  expected  to  emerge  as  the fastest expanding nutraceutical market. At  present  consumption  of  functional  foods  appear  to  be  far  more  than production and we  witness  large varieties of  imported  dietary supplements  and functional foods. Country therefore, needs to augment all sources at its command to  increase  production  of  nutraceuticals  and  functional  foods  not  only to  meet domestic demand but also cater to international markets. This can be made possible only  if  we  produce  quality  materials  meeting  international  specifications  as substandard products have no place in the quality conscience international markets. We  need  to  develop  world-class  quality  extraction,  isolation  procedures  and analytical  methodologies  as  per  international  standards  and  specifications.  The research project, therefore aims at developing appropriate environment friendly production systems for the production of food grade phytochemicals. The technical materials, processes and products so developed will be transferred to industry for possible commercialization. Under this project, it is proposed to investigate three well known vegetable crops (tomato, carrot, chilli), and a non-food plant Stevia rebaudiana to prospect for nutraceuticals, food supplements and natural colorants. It is also proposed to take  up  a  micro-algal  species  Spirulina  to  prospect  for  carotenes  natural  food

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colorants  phycobilins. At the  moment  USA,  Japan, and  European  countries are the largest global producer and consumer of the nutraceutical ingredients. If proper research  infrastructure  is  created  in  India  time  will  not  be  far  when  India  will compete with international players in the nutraceutical industry.

Pomegranate The pomegranate (Punica granatum L.) tree especially its fruit  possesses a vast ethnomedical history and represents a phytochemical reservoir of medicinal value (Seeram et al., 2006). It has recently been acclaimed for its health benefits and for its disease-fighting antioxidant potential. Much of the work on pomegranate over  the  past  years  has  focused  on  antioxidant  activity  of  the  tree’s  various components  (Singh  et al.,  2002,  Ricci  et al.,  2006).  The  phytochemistry  and pharmacological actions of all P. granatum components suggest a wide range of clinical applications for the treatment and prevention of cardiovascular protection (Aviram  and  Dornfeld  2003),    cancer,  as  well  as  other  diseases  (Adams  et al., 2006, Jeune et al., 2005, Lansky and Newman 2007) where chronic inflammation is believed to play an essential role. Studies have shown that pomegranate juice has more polyphenol antioxidants than any other drink, such as red wine, green tea, blueberry juice, cranberry juice and orange juice. Currently, the two common ways of consuming pomegranates are by eating the fleshy arils of the pomegranate and  by  drinking  the  juice  obtained  from  the  arils.  The  extract  obtained  from pomegranate  solids  consists  of  the  pericarp,  inner  membrane  and  seeds.  The extract produced differs from commercially-available  pomegranate  juice in that the  extract  is  substantially  derived  from  the  pomegranate  solids,  whereas pomegranate juice is substantially derived from the sweet, fleshy arils. Punicalagin is a powerful antioxidant, protecting cardiovascular function and accurate cellular replication. It is responsible, in part, for the high antioxidant activity of the extract. While the antioxidant and other beneficial health effects of the extract are due to the presence of polyphenols, the presence of other phytochemical compounds in the  extract,  or  the  synergistic  effect  of  these  phytochemicals,  may  also  be responsible for the anti-oxidant and other beneficial health effects of the extract (Longtin, 2003; Seeram et al., 2005, 2006). In addition to punicalagin, other high molecular weight polyphenols include ellagitannin and other hydrolysable tannins, such  as  punicacortein A,  punicalin,  pedunculagin,  and  gallotanin  dimmers  and trimers. A large number of anthocyanins have also been characterized in the extract of the pomegranate solids. These include pelargonidin 3-glucoside, cyaniding 3glucoside, delphinidin 3-glucoside, pelargonidin 3,5-diglucoside, cyaniding 3,5diglucoside,  and  delphinidin  3,5-diglucoside.  Several  high  performance  liquid chromatographic  methods  have  been  effectively  employed  for  the  analysis  of ellagic  acid  and  other  nutraceuticals  from  pomegranate  (Amakura  et al.,  2000, Artik  1998, Aviram  and  Dornfeld  2003,  Zhou  et al.,  2008). Although  these anthocyanins have been characterized in both the pomegranate juice and the extract, these comprise a higher proportion of the total polyphenol content in pomegranate

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juice (approximately 50%) than in the extract. The scientists have now reported that the peel offers higher yields of phenolics, flavonoids and proanythocyanidins than the pulp. The pulp yielded 24 milligrams per gram (mg/g) of phenolics, while the peel yielded a whopping 250 mg/g. Flavonoid content was also significantly greater in the peel than the pulp (59 versus 17 mg/g), as were proanythocyanidins (11 versus 5 mg/g). Different measures of antioxidant activity like FRAP (ferricreducing  antioxidant  power)  assay,  the  superoxide  radical-scavenging  activity, the hydroxyl radical prevention activity, and the inhibition of low-density lipoprotein (LDL) oxidation have been used to evaluate nutraceutical potential of pomegranate. Oxidation of LDL has been proposed to play a key role in hardening of the arteries (atherosclerosis) which is linked to heart disease - the cause of about 50 per cent of deaths from heart diseases. Pomegranate juice consumption increases antioxidant enzyme activity, protecting the body from free radicals. Its  polyphenol rich juice protects LDL against oxidation, which is thought to speed up the hardening of the arteries. Pomegranate peel performed significantly better than the pulp in all of the tests of antioxidant activity.

Jamun Jamun (Syzygium cumini L., Syn: Eugenia jambolana, Syzygium jambolana), is a tropical and sub-tropical evergreen tree that yields purple ovoid fleshy fruit. It has remained an underutilized tropical fruit and  is valued for  its medicinal  and therapeutic properties. In traditional Indian medicine, it is extensively used against diabetes and apart from that, it is also administered against various ailments like carminative, febrifuge, antibacterial, diuretic, and diarrhoea.  Based on the available ethno-pharmacological  knowledge,  studies  have  been  conducted  to  understand the chemical composition and antioxidant activities of three anatomically distinct parts of fruit- the pulp, kernel and seed coat. Ethanolic extract of jamun kernel exhibited antioxidant activity superior to catechin and other commercial synthetic antioxidants. Activity has been attributed to the presence of anthocyanin content in the fruits. Some of the bioactives in the fruits have been identified as delphinidin3-gentiobioside, jambocine, malvidin-3-laminaribiside and petunidin-3-gentiobioside. Among the 30 volatiles compounds in the fruit, three esters namely dihydrocarvyl acetate, geranyl butyrate and terpinyl valerate were probably responsible for the characteristic  flavour  of  the jamun fruits.  Fruits  also  yielded  citric  acid,  malic acid, gallic acids and -sitosterol. Diluted juice of fruits is diuretic and prevents enlargement of spleen. Seed powder of jamun is used as good diabetic medicine.

Other Fruits of Arid/Semi-Arid Region Aegle marmelos (Bael) :Beal  tree (Family Rutaceae) is native to India and grow in indo-gangetic plains, sub-Himalayan tracts, north-east India and dry and deciduous forests of central and southern India. Main growing states are Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar  Pradesh, Bihar, Uttarakhand and Orissa. The leaves are traditionally used as sacred offering to Lord Shiva. Fruit are used to make value

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added products such as sharbat, squash, murabba, jam etc. It is also used in tea, cosmetic, ayurvedic and pharmaceutical industries. More than 100 bioactive compounds have been reported from various parts of plant. Some of these have been identified as marmelosin, luvangetin, aurapton, psoralen, mormelide, Imperatorin, tannin, aegelin, lupeol, cineole, citral, cuminaldehyde, eugenol, skimmianine etc. All the parts of plants are used as ethno-medicines against various human ailments. They exhibit antioxidant, anticancer, antimicrobial, antihyperlipidaemic, anti-inflmmatory, antipyretic, analgesic and anti-spermatogenic properties. One of its major constituents skimmianine have anticancer, antipyretic, antidiuretic property. Other major constituents namely aegelin, lupeol and marmin show antihyperglysemic, anti-inflammatory and antiulcer activity respectively. Similarly marmelosin exhibit antihelmantic and antibacterial activity. Bael juice therefore can be employed as a potential component to prepare nutraceutical rich fusion food products. Phyllanthus emblica (Amla): Amla (Phyllanthaceae family) is a traditional fruit known for nutricitional and medicinal benefits. The tree bearing juicy greenish yellow fruits is distributed mainly in north-east India and dry and deciduous forests of central India. Main growing states, are Rajasthan, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Uttarakhand. Fruit are used in making sharbat, squash, murabba, jam etc. It is also used in tea, cosmetic, ayurvedic and pharmaceutical industries. The fruit is reputed to contain high amounts of ascorbic acid (vitamin C), 20 times as much as oranges. It also contain polyphenols such as flavonoids, kaempferol, ellagic acid, phyllemblin(ethyl gallate) and gallic acid which are responsible for its potent antioxidant activity. Chayanprash and Triphala, the two very popular ayurvedic preparations contain amla as one of the three constituents-the remaining two being Hard and Bhera. The soothing hair oils and herbal shampoo also contain amla extracts. It used in the treatment of urinary related problem, pitha-related digestive problems. It also act as body coolant and supporting the liver functioning. Capparis decidua (Ker): Ker is a spiny bush or small tree belong to Capparidaceae family. It is mainly distributed as natural wild in the arid and semi arid regions of north- west India, mainly in eastern Rajasthan and drier parts of Gujarat, Haryana and Punjab.The flower, fruit, stem and seeds contains n-pentacosane, n- triacontane, n-triacontanol, 2-carboxy-1, 1-dimethylpyrrolodine, 6-(1-hydroxy-non-3-enyl) tetrahydropyran-2-one, -sitosterol, -carotene, ascorbic acid, proteins, total carbohydrates, calcium, potassium, phosphorus, zinc, iron, manganese, glucosinolates. Unripe fruits are edible and used as fresh vegetable. Fruits are rich in proteins, carbohydrates and minerals. It show antidiabetic, anti atherosclerotic, anti hypertensive and antihyperlipidemic activity. The alcoholic extract of fruit pulp and root bark possesses antihelmintic activity. Shoots and young leaves have rubifacient and hypocholesterolemic activity

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Diospyros melanoxylon (Tendu): Tenduis  endemic  tree  of  India  belong  to Ebenaceae family and widely distributed as natural wild in the peninsular plains and  lower  hills  especially  in  the  dry  deciduous  forests  of  central,  eastern  and northern India mainly in Rajasthan, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, and  Orissa. In earlier times the bark was burnt by tribal to “cure” small-pox It is widely used in Indian cigarette product (beedi)  in wrapping the tobacco.The major  tendu phyto-constituents include -sitosterol, monohydroxy monocarboxylic  acid,  monohydroxy  triterpene,  ursolic  acid,  betulinic  acid, baurenol, diospyric acid, isobanerenol, methyl betulinate, lupeol, betulin, betulinic acid,  and  naphthaquinones  namely  2-methyl-5-methoxy-1,4-naphthaquinone, 2-methyl-3-hydroxy-5-methoxy,  3-methyl-8-methoxy-1,9-naphthaquinone,  and 2-methyl-  5,6-dimethoxy-1,4-napthaquinone.  Dried  flowers  are  reported  to  be useful  in  urinary,  skin  and  blood  disorders.  Dried  powdered  fruit  is  used  as carminative and astringent. The seeds are prescribed as cure for mental disorders and nervous breakdown. Grewia subinaequalis (Phalsa): The large shrub or small tree (Family Tiliaceae) is  native to Western India  and  is  mostly  distributed  in  the  semi-arid regions  of Maharashtra,  Rajasthan, Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Haryana,  and Punjab  The  flowers  mainly  contain  grewinol,  a  long  chain  keto  alcohol,  and tetratricontane-22-ol-13-one. The  seeds contain 5% of  a bright-yellow fixed oil containing 8.3% palmitic acid, 11.0% stearic acid, 13.4% oleic acid, and 64.5% linoleic  acid.  Fruit  possess  astringent  properties  and  used  for  several  stomach ailments. Fresh  or dried fruits are  used to cure heart and blood disorders, fever and diarrhea. The root bark is used for rheumatism. Manilkara hexandra (Khirni): This medium to large size evergreen treebelongs to  Sapotaceae  family. It  bears  oval,  sweet  edible  berry  fruits  with  one  or  more seeds. Tree is well adapted to arid and semi-arid conditions and can tolerate drought conditions. It is  an indigenous tree to  India, found wild  in the  forests  of  South India, North-central India, parts of Gujarat and Rajasthan. Fruits and bark of this tree  species  have  economical  value  as  mature  fresh  fruits  are  very  sweet  and eaten raw as well as after drying. The bark has several  medicinal uses. The seeds contain  approximately  25%  oil  which  is  used  for  cooking  purposes.It  is  a  rich source vitamin A, iron, sugars, minerals, protein and carbohydrate etc. Salvadora Species (Pilu and Miswak): This  small  evergreen  tree  belongs  to Salvadoraceae family. It is extremely well adapted to arid conditions and grows on  dry,  saline  and  desert  areas  of  Rajasthan,  Gujarat,  Haryana,  Punjab,  Uttar Pradesh, and Madhya Pradesh. Some of its important bioactive phyto-constituents include  benzyl-isothiocyanate, -sitosterol, m-anisic acid, salvadourea [1,3-Bis(3-  methoxy-benzyl)-urea],  alkaloid,  vitamin  C,  and  small  amounts  of  tannins, saponins, flavenoids, sterols and salvadorim. Both the species have medicinal and pharmaceutical applications. Roots and small branches cure toothache and gum diseases. Seeds are  used as a cure for piles, rheumatism, skin diseases. Besides

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high calcium content, the fruit contains glucose, fructose and sucrose in addition to. Ziziphus Species (Ber): Ber (Family Rhamnaceae)  is    common in the  dry arid areas of Haryana,  Rajasthan, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Punjab and Madhya Pradesh. Fruit bear catechin, caffeic acid, epicatechin, ferulic acid, rutin, p-hydroxybenzoic acid and chlorogenic acid while in leaves quercetin, p-coumaric acid, ferulic acid, rutin, apigenin-7-glucoside, eriodictyol, p-hydroxybenzoic acid, chlorogenic acid and  syringic  acid  as  a  main  phytoconstituents.  Fruit  is  also  a  rich  source  of calcium, phosphorous, protein, minerals, vitamin C. While fruit has laxative and aphrodisiac property, the bark is used as a cure for dysentery. It is observed that fruit of arid and semi- arid zone have nutritional, medicinal and therapeutic applications. Therefore these plants may help to bring revolution in the field of nutraceutical or value added fusion products.

Fruit Processing Wastes Fruit juice processing generates substantial waste materials which are underutilized, commonly being  fed to  livestock  or  taken  to  the  land-fill.  Such presscake residues and centrifuge sediments contain substantial quantities of anthocyanin pigments and polyphenolics which are potential sources for natural colorants and nutraceuticals.  There  is  a  need  to  identify  and  measure  the  distribution  of anthocyanins and polyphenolics in such fruit components as peel, pulp and seeds. Thus spent wastes generated in pilot plant juice processing trials as well as industrial wastes  of  apple, jamun, pomegranate  etc.  may  yield  additional  quantities  of nutraceuticals.  Development  of  natural  colorants  and  nutraceuticals  from  fruit juice  processing  by-products  can  further  improve  the  efficiency  of  processing operations, provide added value, and be friendly to activities could lead to increased consumption and expanded market opportunities for these agricultural commodities. Thus  fruit  processing  wastes  may  contain  significant  concentration  of anthocyanins, polyphenolics and antioxidant capacity than flesh whole fruit and seeds. Anthocyanin profiles were qualitatively the same with different proportions of individual anthocyanins in peel and flesh and seeds. Enzyme treatments of the wastes  may  also  sometime  yield  better  extraction  efficiency.  Juice  processing usually generates considerable waste that besides being harmful to the environment may be difficult to dispose. Seeds represent a sizeable proportion of such waste, e.g., jamun, pomegranate and other fruits may represent c.a. 5-50% of the fresh fruit  weight.  Some  seeds  and  peels  may  be  rich  in  polyphenolics  and  these compounds are high in antioxidant properties that may provide health benefits. A possible strategy for  reducing the  incidence  of  haze  and sediment  formation  in fruit juice would be to promote ellagitannin hydrolysis through enzymatic treatment or  modifying  processing  operation  conditions.  Ellagic  acid  has  been  shown  to have anti-carcinogen properties, and could be recovered by centrifugation/filtration as a potential valuable by-product.

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Further Reading Johanningsmeier, S.D and, Harris, G.K. 2011. Pomegranate as a functional food and nutraceutical source. Annu Rev Food Sci Technol. 2:181-201. Caligiani, A.,  Bonzanini,  F.,  Palla,  G.,  Cirlini,  M.  and  Bruni,  R.  2010.  Characterization  of  a potential  nutraceutical  ingredient:  pomegranate  (Punica granatum L.)  seed  oil unsaponifiable fraction.Plant Foods Hum Nutr. 65: 277-283.

Nutraceutical Values of Horticultural Crops and Products, pp 25-32 © 2018, New India Publishing Agency, New Delhi, India Editors: Dhurendra Singh, P. N. Sivalingam, Pinaki Acharyya and S.R. Meena

4 Improvement in Underutilized Fruit Crops Rich in Bioactive Compounds and their Economic Cultivation Sanjay Singh, A.K. Singh and K. Lata

India is emerging as a major stakeholder in the global horticulture scenario accounting for 10.00 % of the world production of fruits. This has been made possible due to concerted efforts of scientists and progressive farming community. In recent years, there is considerable awareness about the nutritional security and food safety. Underutilized fruit trees not only provide nutrition and income security to the people but can also ameliorate the harsh environment of the semi-arid and arid region. Jamun has been named as diabetes fighter for its hypoglycemic (lowering blood sugar) properties.The minor fruits like bael, karonda, khirni, mahua, tamarind, mulberry, pilu, chironji, phalsa and wood apple have tremendous scope for their proper utilization. These fruits are nutritionally rich in bioactive compounds and some of these are of great medicinal value, processing quality and other uses. They have a growing demand in local as well as export market and for processing besides diversification in agriculture in the wake of global changes in weather conditions.

Improvement in Underutilized Fruits Jamun The Jamun (Syzygium cuminii Skeels) is a nutritious fruit with a variety of uses. The fruit is good source of iron, sugars, minerals, protein and carbohydrate etc. Fully ripe fruits are eaten fresh and can be processed into beverages like jelly, jam, squash, wine, vinegar & pickles. Seeds contain alkaloid jambosin and glycoside, which reduce / stop the diastatic conversion of starch in to sugars. Fruits are used as an effective medicine against diabetes, heart and liver trouble. The Powdered seeds have also reputation of being useful in the treatment of diabetes. Leaf extract of jamun also reduces the radiation induced DNA damage in the

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cultured human peripheral blood. At CHES, Godhra, total 26 genotypes were evaluated (2001-2009) for their growth, flowering and fruiting attributes and GJ2 (Goma Priyanka) was screened as promising type. Salient characters of Goma Priyanka is as under:

Goma Priyanka Goma Priyanka was released at CHES, Godhra in the year 2010. The selected genotype was propagated through patch budding and tested under field conditions for 8 years (2001-2009). The selection out performed in respect of flowering pattern, fruiting and fruit quality attributes. The tree height and girth was recorded 5.25 m and 64.66 cm respectively. North- South and East- West spread was found to be 5.00m and 4.76 m respectively. It is semi-dwarf, spreading growth habit, dense foliage and drooping branches, early, precocious bearer (starts flowering in 4th year) and suitable for high density planting. It starts flowering in the month of March, ripens in the fourth week of May and recorded 19.86 g average fruit weight, 85.06 per cent pulp, 16.80oBrix TSS, 0.38 % titratable acidity, 12.10 % total sugar, 6.11 % reducing sugar, 45.44 mg/100 g vitamin C, 14.38 mg/100g calcium, 34.78 mg/100g magnesium, 15.83 mg/100g phosphorus and 56.31 mg/ 100g potassium. It recorded 43.80 kg fruit yield during 8 th year of orchard life under rainfed conditions of hot semi-arid ecosystem of western India.

Other Promising Genotypes of Jamun GJ-8 It was collected from Ode village of Anand district of Gujarat. Peak period of flowering is in the month of March. It ripens in the second week of June and recorded 17.00 g average fruit weight, 81.82 per cent, pulp, 14.20 per cent, TSS, 0.39 per cent, acidity, per cent, 11.35 per cent, total sugar and 45.10 mg/100 g vitamin C.

GJ-40 It was also collected from Ode village of Anand district of Gujarat. Peak period of flowering is in the month of March. It ripens in the fourth week of June and recorded average fruit weight 16.00 g, 82.00 % pulp, 14.00 % TSS, 0.39 % acidity, 11.00 % total sugar and 46.10 mg/100g vitamin C.

Antioxidant Value of Superior Jamun Genotypes Jamun is rich in antioxidant compounds. The maximum antioxidant value was observed in accession CISH J-35 (1798.65 µg/ml AEAC unit) using Ferric reducing antioxidant potential and it was minimum in CISH J-32 (828.45 µg/ml AEAC unit). On the basis of a stable free radicle DPPH (1,1-diphenyl-2picrylhydrazyl), the maximum antioxidant capacity of 1870.8 (µg/ml AEAC unit) was observed in CISH J-26. The total carotenoides was recorded maximum in CISH J-28 (63.1 µg/100ml) and minimum in 4.2 µg/100ml in CISH J-24. The

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phenol content was found to range from a maximum of 16.7 mg/100ml in CISH J-38 to a mimimum of 4.0 mg/100ml in CISH J-33. The flavonoid content varied from 0.41 to 2.7 mg/100ml in CISH J-24 and CISH J-27 respectively.

Tamarind Tamarind (Tamarindus indica L.) a member of sub family caesalpiniaceae of family leguminoceae, is an underutilized fruit and widely distributed throughout tropic and sub-tropics as stray plantation or avenue. Owing to its varied use in household and export market, it has emerged as a potential fruit crop. At CHES, Godhra, total 24 genotypes were evaluated (2001-2009) for their growth, flowering and fruiting attributes and Tamarind-13 (Goma Prateek) was screened as promising one. Salient characters of Goma Prateek is as under:

Goma Prateek Goma Prateek was released at CHES, Godhra in the year 2010. It is early, spreading growth habit, regular bearer, semi dwarf and starts flowering in 4 th year. Peak period of flowering is first week of June and ripens in the first week of March and recorded 26.70 g average pod weight, 16.70 cm pod length, 50.50 per cent pulp, 14.06 % acidity, 71.00oBrix TSS, 55.81 % total sugar, 27.27 % reducing sugar, 17.53 mg/100g vitamin C, 3.29g/100g protein, 177.70 mg/100g calcium, 44.17 mg/100g magnesium, 70.83 mg/100g phosphorus. Fruit shape is slightly curved with reddish pulp, suitable for processing. Fruit yield per plant is 58.50kg during 9th year of orchard life under rainfed conditions of hot semi-arid ecosystem. These fruits have great potential under semi arid conditions of western India. Varietal wealth: Some promising tamarind selections as a result of evaluation at different institutions are listed below. PKM 1: It is a selection made at Horticulture College and Research Institute, Periyakulam. Grafts come to flowering three years after planting. The pods have 35% pulp, 17.1 % acidity and 3.90 mg/100 g ascorbic acid. Urigam: It is progeny of more than 200-year–old tree identified near Urigam by Department of Horticulture, Tamil Nadu. The average length of fruits is 30 cm. Pratisthan : It was released from Fruit Research Station, Aurangabad. It has 61 % pulp, 12% seed, 27 % shell and 7-9 % acidity. It is sour –sweet tamarind. Its pulp can be stored for long period. Tamarind - 263: It wa also released from Fruit Research Station, Aurangabad. The fruits have pinkish and light yellow pulp and 18-19 % acidity. Yogeshwari: The variety has been released from Taluk Seed farm, Ambajogai (Beed) in Maharashtra .The fruits are large and have red and sour – sweet pulp with 6-7 % acidity. DTS-1: It is a selection identified at University of agricultural Sciences, Dharwad. The pods are straight having semi-curved shape, 23.6 cm length, 3cm width, 19.5 gm weight, 51.00 % pulp and 13.60 % acidity. It is a late variety and takes 310 days from fruit set to maturity.

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DTS-2: This is a selection made at University of Agricultural Sciences, Dharwad. The pods are straight having semi- curved shape, 17.60 cm length, 2.60 cm width, 18.00 gm weight, 53.00 % pulp and 12.20 % acidity. It is an early variety and the pods mature in 280 days after fruit set.

Chiraunji Chiraunji (Buchanania lanzan Spreng.) is excellent tree of agro forestry and social forestry. In the wasteland development and dryland horticulture, it assumes great significance due to its multifarious uses and capacity to withstand adverse climatic conditions. The flesh of ripe fruit is very palatable and is largely eaten raw or roasted and the oily kernels are the most important part and are used in preparation of puddings. Very good juice may be prepared from the pulp of chironji fruits. The kernel is highly nutritious and rich in protein (25.0-30.0%) and yields sweet oil, which can be used to substitute olive and almond oil. Kernel contains 33.50 % oil, 1.90 % of which is unsaponifiable. The saponifiable part contained 20.00 % of linoleic acid. An ointment made out of the kernels is used to cure itch of the skin and to remove blemishes from the face. Chironji provides quality timber wood for various uses. Fifteen genotypes of chiraunji were evaluated for flowering and fruit quality attributes. Based on the horticultural traits studied, the genotype, CHESC-7 was found promising. Salient characters of CHESC-7 is as under

Chiraunji “CHESC-7” It was collected from Kada Dam of Panchmahal district, Gujarat. Peak period of flowering and fruit set was in the first week of February and 3 rd week of February respectively. It recorded maximum panicle length (26.00 cm). Peak period of ripening time was third week of April. It recorded 1.20 g fruit weight, 22.00 % TSS, 13.00 % total sugar and 50.00 mg/100g vitamin C, 0.12g kernel weight and 30.50 % kernel protein.

Mahua Survey of Mahua was made in Gujarat. It is one of the important crops for tribal farmers of Gujarat. Detailed description of 4 promising genotypes are as under:

Mahua-10 It was collected from Vejalpur village of Panchmahal district, Gujarat. Peak period of flowering is in the second week of March. Flowers recorded 2.29 g weight, 65.00 % juice and 26.37 % TSS. It ripens in second week of May and recorded 30.50 fruit weight, 13.50g seed weight and 11.00g kernel.

Mahua-14 It was collected from Otala village (Baria Road) of Panchmahal district, Gujarat. Peak period of flowering is in the second week of March. Flowers recorded

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2.24 g weight, 66.00% juice and 25.00% TSS. It ripens in the second week of May and recorded 29.00 g fruit weight, 12.70g seed weight and 9.53g kernel.

Mahua-35 It was collected from Reechawani village (Baria Road) of Dahod district. Peak period of flowering is in the second week of March. Flowers recorded 2.13 g weight, 64.12% juice and 24.90% TSS. It ripens in third week of June and recorded 28.50 g fruit weight, 12.23g seed weight and 10.08g kernel weight.

Mahua-63 It was collected from Reechawani village (Baria Road) of Panchmahal district, Gujarat. Peak period of flowering is taken place in the 4th week of March. Flowers recorded 2.50 g weight, 68.00 % juice and 24.37% TSS. It ripens in 4th week of May and recorded 23.50g fruit weight.

Antioxidant value of some superior Mahua genotypes/accessions The maximum antioxidiant value was observed in accession CISH-4 (88.20 µg/ ml AEAC unit) using Ferric reducing antioxidnant potential and 70.50µg/ml AEAC unit on the basis of a stable free radicle DPPH (1,1 –diphenyl-2 picrythdrazyl), while CISH M-5 showed minimum value (3.15 µg/ml AEAC unit) by FRAP and on the basis of DPPH, it was 12.06 µg/ml AEAC unit. The total carotenoids was recorded maximum in CISH M-1(45.3 µg/100 ml) and minimum in 4.2 µg/100ml in CISH M-5. The phenol content was found maximum 2.30 mg/100ml in CISH M-4, whereas it was minimum in CISH M-1(1.80 mg/100ml). The flavonoid content was found 0.06mg/100ml in CISH M-1 and CISH M-2.

Beal Bael (Aegle marmelos Correa) is an important indigenous fruit of India having mythological significance . At CHES, Godhra, Goma Yashi was developed.

Goma Yashi Fruit yield (51.00 kg 6thyear), fruit size (13.00 cm x 12.50 cm), fruit girth (41-45 cm), shell thickness (0.17cm), seed weight (25-30g), fibre weight (40.2451.20g), shell weight (180-210g), fruit weight (1.00-1.62 kg), locules in cross section (13-15), TSS pulp (35-390B), TSS mucilage (41-430B), titratable acidity (0.26-0.32%) and vitamin C (22.00 mg/100 g pulp).It is highly suitable for high density planting.

Khirni Khirni or Rayan botanically known as (Manilkara hexandra ) is an economically multipurpose tree of the family sapotaceae. Thirty genotypes were selected & evaluated their fruiting and fruit quality attributes. Detailed description of promising genotypes are as under:

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GK-1: It was collected from Kharsalia village of Panchamahal district, Gujarat. The peak period of flowering was recorded in the month of November. It ripens in the first week of March and recorded 5.66g fruit weight, 4.93g pulp weight, 21.00 % TSS, 16.20mg/100 vitamin C and 4.30g/100g carotene. GK-10: It was collected from Parwadi village of Panchamahal district, Gujarat. The peak period of flowering was recorded in the month of December. It ripens in third week of May and recorded 6.64g fruit weight, 5.71g pulp weight, 26.40 % TSS, 24.25mg/100 vitamin C and6.6.06g/100g carotene.

Antioxidant value of some superior Khirni genotypes/accessions The maximum antioxidant value was observed in accession CISH K-3 (213.85 µg/ml AEAC unit) using Ferric reducing antioxidant potential, while CISH K-1 showed minimum value (78.05 µg/ml AEAC unit). The total carotenoids was recorded maximum in CISH K-2 (85.9 µg/100ml) and minimum in 9.8 µg/100 ml in CISH K-3. The phenol content was ranged maximum 5.50 in mg/100ml in CISH K-3 whereas it was minimum in CISH K-1 (2.80 mg/100ml). The flavonoid content varied from 0.21 to 0.96 mg/100 ml in CISH K-4 and CISH K-1.

Detailed description of promising genotype of Karonda CHESK-1: It was collected from CHES campus, Vejalpur, Panchamahal district, Gujarat. The peak period of flowering was recorded in the month of March. It ripens in the month of June and recorded 6.00 g fruit weight, 4.64 g pulp weight, 10.63 % TSS, 0.97 % acidity, 26.39 mg/100g vitamin C.

Cape gooseberry (Makoi) Survey work was made to select the promising genotypes of cape gooseberry. Detailed description of two promising genotypes are as under: CHESC-1: It was collected from Bihar. It ripens in the month of JanuarFebruary and recorded 11.50 g fruit weight, 12.00 % TSS, 1.64 % acidity, 7.50 % total sugar and 220.10 mg/100g vitamin C. CHESC-2: It was also collected from Bihar. It ripens in the month of JanuarFebruary and recorded 10.75 g fruit weight, 11.20 % TSS, 1.70 % acidity, 7.25 % total sugar and 190.22 mg/100g vitamin C. Singh and Singh, 2005abc and Singh et al., 2006 have reported that under utilized fruits have tremendous potential under semi arid ecosystem of western India.

Propagation Techniques of Underutilized Fruits In jamun (Syzygium Cuminii Skeels), highest success through patch budding was noted in March (70-80 %), where as soft wood grafting recorded maximum success in the month of July and August (75-80%). Irrespective of scion and rootstock, maximum accumulation of nitrogen and carbohydrate content was recorded in March, while it was found in lower concentration during September, October, November, December and January. Patch budding in March and soft

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wood grafting in July- August may be followed for multiplication of elite jamun plants. In tamarind (Tamarindus indica L.), the highest percentage of budding success was noted in the month of July-August (75-80.00 %). While, soft wood grafting recorded maximum success in the month of May, June,July and August (60-75%). Soft wood grafting in Khirni (Manilkara hexandra), chironji (Buchanania lanzan Spreng) and Mahua (Bassia latifolia) were tried. In Khirni highest percentage of graft success was noted in March (76.66 %) followed by June, July and August, where as it was recorded least in the month of February (10.00 %). In chironji, highest percentage of graft success was noted in July (66.66 %) followed by August and June, where as it was recorded least in the month of February (3.33 %). The highest percentage of graft success in Mahua was recorded in the month of March (70.00) closely followed by April, July and August. Naturally defoliated scion sticks of Mahua were found suitable to achieve good success through softwood grafting during the month of March-April. Soft wood grafting during the month of June, July and August may be practiced with 65-80% success for multiplication wood apple and custard apple genotypes. It may be concluded that most of the underutilized fruits may be multiplied through soft wood grafting and patch budding during the month of July, August, March and April. Hi-Tech glass house may also be used to multiply quality planting materials through out the year.

Canopy Management Among the production packages, tree canopy management, especially size control, has become a priority for the orchadist due to the demands imposed by modern markets in terms of production costs, yield and fruit quality. Early height control and tree management are practiced in many countries but these strategies being relatively recent, are generally not practiced in India. Similarly, the problem of large tree size in fruit crops has been ameliorated by using topping and hedging because large and crowed trees pose many disadvantages. This has resulted in widespread efforts to reduce tree size and increase tree density. Fruit quality of jamun fruits improved in terms of fruit weight and pulp per cent after following 50.00% pruning of annual extension growth during the month of September. To maintain the dwarf framework of the jamun, main stem may be headed back at desired height (4-6 meters) to facilitate easy harvesting of the fruits. Under normal planting density, 10x10 meter distance is advocated, while, 5x5 meter is advisable under high density planting. KVK Panchamahal has also made efforts to popularize the jamun variety and its canopy management at the field of the farmers. Underutilized fruits have great potential and it will be very effective to sustain the nutritional security and biodiversity in the semi-arid ecosystem of western India.

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Further Reading Singh Sanjay and Singh, A. K. 2005a. Genetic diversity in mahua (Bassia latifolia) under semi arid ecosystem of Gujarat. Indian J. Agril. Sci., 75: 519-23. Singh Sanjay and Singh, A. K. 2005b. Genetic variability in jamun (syzygium cumini skeels) from Gujarat. Progressive Hort. 37: 44-48. Singh Sanjay and Singh, A. K. 2005c. Studies on genetic diversity in Mahua(Bassia latifolia) under semi arid ecosystem of Gujarat. Indian J. Agril. Sic..75:519-523. Singh Sanjay, Singh, A.K. and Apparao, V.V. 2006. Genetic diversity in Chironji (Buchanania lanzan) under semi- arid ecosystem of Gujarat. Indian J. Agril. Sic..76:695-698.

Nutraceutical Values of Horticultural Crops and Products, pp 33-39 © 2018, New India Publishing Agency, New Delhi, India Editors: Dhurendra Singh, P. N. Sivalingam, Pinaki Acharyya and S.R. Meena

5 Ethnobotanical Importance of Flora of Hot Arid Regions of India J.P. Singh and V.S. Rathore

Introduction During the last few decades, interest in Ethnobotany has evolved substantially world wide, particularly in India, Africa, Mexico, South America, and South-East Asia. Ethnobiological information on what and how local people make use of plants and animals have been traditionally gathered and passed on from generation to generation. India represents one of the greatest emporia of ethnobotanical wealth. Like other parts of India, in hot arid region also, rural and tribal communities have precious information about utilization of indigenous plants. Besides identification of plants as food, fodder, medicine etc., there also exists similar experience on life support species for exigencies like drought and famines, which is less utilized so far. Several researchers made contribution on etnobotanical aspects of Thar Desert. During 19th century, King (1869 and 1870) listed wild plants used as food and vegetables during famine by people of Marwar region of Thar Desert. Afterwards, ethnobotanical aspects of edible plants of this region was attempted by several workers (Gupta and Kanodia, 1968; Bhandari, 1974; Saxena, 1979; Shankar, 1988; Shankarnarayan and Saxena, 1988). Recently, Shekhawat and Anand (1984), Mahewshwari (1995), Singh and Pandey (1998), Kumar and Parveen (2000), Kumar et al., (2004, 2005) highlighted etnobotanical information of this region. Besides, food plants herbals are being the integral part of primary health care of rural and tribal societies. Since time immemorial several plant species are being used in the region as a preventive and curative medicine for many diseases and ailments. This traditional knowledge base was the foundation for screening of large number of plants for their active ingredients or phytochemicals in preparation of herbal medicines. Plant species like Emblica offcinalis, Ocimum sanctum, Withania somnifera etc have been proved to have with high antistress and antioxidant activity. Traditional species of economic importance of hot arid region have immense value as evolved in nature to survive under abiotic stress conditions. They have become adapted to cope with many natural hazards and also developed

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resistance to the pest and diseases. The secretion of essential oil by certain arid plants appears to play a part in protecting them against drought. Nowadays herbal nutraceauticals, antioxidants, adaptogen herbs etc. are gaining momentum world over for human beings as well as animal’s health care. This paper is an attempt to give an account of ethnic information pertaining to use of plants of hot arid region with special reference to food and medicines.

Plant Species Used as Human Food Foliage: A number of wild herbaceous species viz., Amaranthus spinosus L., A. viridis L., Achyranthes aspera L., Celosia argentea L., Chenopodium album L., Commelina benghalensis L., Digera muricata L., Mart., Emex spinosa L., Campd., Portulaca oleracea L., P. tuberosa Roxb., etc are used as pot herb in the region. The species like Boerhavia diffusa L., Chenopodium murale L., Cleome viscosa L., Commelina albescens Hassk., Gisekia pharnacioides L., Leucas cephalotes (Roth) Spreng., Sesuvium sesuvioides (Fenzl.) P. Beauv., Trianthema portulacastrum L. etc. are also used as vegetable during scarcity. The leaves of Talinum protulacifolium (Forsk.) Aschers. & Scweinf. are eaten as spinach. Leaves of Aloe vera are the important component of vegetable in hot arid region. Leaves of Euphorbia caducifolia L. are used as vegetable. Foliage of a halophyte chenopod shrub Suaeda fruticosa (L.) Forsk. also used as vegetable and has medicinal value to cure indigestion and flatulence (Singh et al., 2006). Foliage of other halophyte shrub Salsola baryosma (Roem. Et Schult.) Dandy is also reported to be used as green vegetable. Young shoots of Caralluma edulis (Edgew.) Benthan & Hooker, are traditionally used as vegetable in Thar desert, which has medicinal value. Flower: The flower buds of Calligonum polygonoides L. locally called as Phogla is being the traditional food item and rich source of crude protein and total carbohydrate, with low fibre content (Singh et al., 2004). In arid part of Gujarat flowers and flower buds of Capparis decidua are used vegetable (Tikka and Jaimini, 2005). Fruits/Pods (Eaten as fresh): Cucurbits have long been important in the internal food trade in arid region (Singh et al., 2004). The species like Cucumis melo L. var. momordica (Roxb.) Duthie, Citrullus lanatus (Thunb.) Matsumara & Nakai are very important in hot arid region. Ripe fruits of shrubs like Capparis decidua, Cordia gharaf (Forsk.) Ehrenb. & Aschers., Grewia tenax (Forsk.) Fiori, G. villosa, Ziziphus nummularia (Burm.f.) Wt. are eaten. The ripe fruits of Salvadora oleoides Secne. locally known as Pilu are also the delicacy of Thar Desert. Fruit pulp of Balanites aegyptiaca (L.) Delile is also eaten. The fruits of Ephedra foliata Boiss. & Kotschy ex Boiss., Opuntia elatior Mill., Tamarix troupii Hole are also said to be eaten. Fruits/Pods (As Vegetable): Again the cucurbits viz., Citrullus lanatus, Cucumis callosus (Rottl.) Cogn., Cucumis melo L. var. agrestis Nanud., Momordica balsamina L., M. dioica Roxb. etc. form the important component of vegetable

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in the region. In shrubs and trees, fruit/pods of Capparis decidua (Forsk.) Edgew, Prosopis cineraria L., Druce, Moringa concanensis Nimmo etc, are used as vegetable. The unripe fruits of Leptadenia pyrotechnica (Forsk.) Decne locally known as Khipoli reported to be rich in nutrients and is fairly good source of minerals (Goyal and Choudhary, 2005). (As pickle): Capparis decidua locally known as Kair is one of the important fruits in pickle making. The fruits of Citrullus colocynthis L., Schard., locally called as Tumba also used for making pickle. Seeds: During famine seeds of wild plants are the source of food in hot arid region. In times of scarcity the grains of wild grass species viz., Brachiaria ramosa L., Stapf., Cenchrus biflorus Roxb., C. ciliaris L., C. setigerus Vahl., Dactyloctenium aegypticum L., P. Beauv., D. sindicum Boiss., Lasiurus sindicus Henr., Ochthochloa compressa (Forsk) Hilu syn Eleusine compressa Forsk., Aschers. Et Schweinf., Panicum antidotale Retz., Panicum turgidum Forsk. etc are mixed with pearl millet and used for making breads and other local preparations. The seeds of wild leguminous species like Indigofera cordifolia Heyne ex Roth., I. hochstetteri Baker, I. linifolia L. f., Retz., Vigna trilobata L., Verdcourt etc are also used during scarcity and famine. The seeds of Citrullus colocynthis which is a wild cucurbit in the area are also mixed with other grains. The seeds of important arid shrub like Haloxylon salicornicum (Moq.) Bunge ex Boiss., are also mixed with pearl millet for making breads. The seeds of Acacia jacquemontii Benth., A. nilotica (L.) Del., A. senegal (L.) Willd. are also used in vegetable, however seeds of A. senegal are one of the important traditional Pachkutta, a vegetable delicacy in western Rajasthan. The seeds of Citrullus lanatus locally called as Mateera are widely used in traditional preparation. The seeds of Ziziphus nummularia (Burm.f.) Wt. are also used in scarcity period. Root: The tuberous roots of Asparagus racemosus Willd., Cyperus rotundus L., Cyperus bulbolus Vahl, Portulaca tuberosa Roxb. are also used as food. In arid part of Gujarat tuberous roots of Leptadenia pyrotechnica (Forsk.) Decne consumed as vegetable (Tikka and Jaimini, 2005). Bark: In extreme famine condition the powdered bark of Prosopis cineraria (L.) Druce is mixed with flour for making breads. Gum: In western Rajasthan Acacia jacquemontii, A. nilotica, A. senegal, are used for collecting gum and used in various food preparations. The gum of A. jacquemontii is reputed with high medicinal value in the area and has local demand (Singh et al., 2006). Vegetable Salt: Halophyte chenopod shrubs viz., Haloxylon recurvum (Moq.) Bunge ex Boiss, Salsola baryosma, Suaeda fruticosa etc are used for extracting salt locally called as Saji after burning the foliage. Saji is used in many traditional preparations in the region particularly for making Papad. Mushroom: Wild mushrooms locally called as Khumbi are also an important component of food basket in Thar Desert. Wild mushrooms growing under the

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canopy of desert shrub Lana (Haloxylon salicornicum) are supposed to be more nutritious than growing under the canopy of other plants (Singh et al., 2003). During the rainy season these wild mushrooms are collected for own consumption and also to sale in the local market as fetch good price.

Plants Traditionally Used as Tonic and Medicine This is one of the important aspects for nutritional and primary health care, which needs detailed study both in botanical and phytochemical point of view. A number of wild species, most of them having medicinal value are traditionally used as health tonic in the Thar Desert. Some of the wild plants are also used as cooling drinks and taken as a part of diet to reduce the effect of sun strokes locally called as Loo (Table 1). The flower buds of Calligonum polygonoides have a cooling effect and used in treating sun strokes. The fruits of Citrullus lanatus, Salvadora persica are also used to overcome heat strokes. Hot arid region is endowed with considerable diversity of medicinal plants utilized by tribal and rural societies to cure many diseases and ailments. These plants play a very important role in primary health care. Plant species like Alhagi maurorum Medikus, Aloe vera (L.) Burm.f., Aristolochia bracteolata Lamk., Arnebia hispidissima DC., Balanites aegyptiaca (L.) Delile, Barleria prionitis L., Calotrropis procera (Ait.) R.Br., Capparis decidua, Cassia angustifolia, Clerodendrum phlomidis L.f., Commophora wightii (Arnott) Bhandari, Convolvulus microphyllus Choisy, Corchorus depressus (L.) Christensen, Cressa cretia L., Cucumis prophetarum L., Cymbopogon jwarancusa (Jones) Schult., Dipcadi erythracum Webb. & Berth., Fagonia indica Burm.f., Haloxylon salicornicum, Indigofera oblongifolia Forsk., Leptadenia pyrotechnica, Lycium barbarum L., Maytenus emarginatus (Willd.) Ding Hou, Mollugo cerviana (L.) Ser., Peganum harmala L., Salvadora oleoides, S. persica, Tephrosia falciformis Ramaswami, Tinospora cordifolia (Willd.) Miers, Tribulus terristris L., Withania somnifera (L.) Dunal etc. are the important medicinal plants of the region. In arid region halophyte chenopod shrubs Viz., Haloxylon recurvum, Salsola baryosma, Suaeda fruticosa etc. of medicinal value have immense value for their secondary metabolites. The plant ash of H. recurvum is given against internal ulcers (Bhandari, 1990). Recently, Recursterols A and B the new C-24 alkylated sterols, have been isolated from it in Pakistan (Hussain et al., 2006). The seeds of H. salicornicum are said to be used in asthma by local Vaids in the region (Singh et al., 2006). A new pyranone -5 hydroxy-3 methoxy-4H-pyran-4one was isolated from the aerial parts of H. salicornicum (Gibbons et al., 2000). Salsola baryosma is used as a vermifuse. Salsolic acid, a new oleanane type triterpene has been isolated from S. baryosma alongwith known triterpenes. The compounds showed inhibitory activity against the enzyme butrylcholinesterase (Ahmad et al., 2007). Ahmad et al., 2008 also reported that Salsolins A and B, the new triterpenes, alongwith 2, 3, 23, 24-tetrahydroxyurs-12-en-28-oic acid compounds showed significant antioxidant activity.

Local name Andi jaro Tarakanchi Unt-kantalo Phog Hedulo Rata bel Santari Cham-ghas Rudanti Phooli Hiran-Chabbo Bakada Dodha Kantalo Ramtulsi, Bapji Buti Asalio Kanti Bordi

Plant Species

Achyranthes aspera L. Abutilon indicum (L.) Sweet

Blepharis sindica T. Anders. Calligonum polygonoides L. Ceropegia bulbosa Roxb. Convolvulus auricomus A. Rich.

Convolvulus microphyllus Sieb. ex Spreng. Corchorus depressus (L.) Christensen

Cressa cretica L.

Evolvulus aldinoides (L.) L. Farsetia hamiltonii Royle Glinus lotoides L.

Glossonema variens (Stocks.) Benth. Lepidagathis bandraensis Blatter

Ocimum americanum L. Pegolettia senegalensis Cass.

Sisymbrium irio L.

Tribulus terrestris L. Ziziphus nummularia

Plants used as tonic and cooling drink in hot arid region

Seed Fruit

Seed

Seed Whole plant

Fruit Seed

Whole plant Whole plant Whole plant

Whole plant

Whole plant Whole plant

Seed Young shoots Tubers Whole plant

Seed Seed

Parts Used Used as tonic (Maheshawari, 1995). Diffusion in hot water forms a cooling drink (Gupta and Kanodia, 1968). Boiled in milk and taken as tonic. Chewed by the children to quench thirst in summer. Relished by shepherd boys to quench their thirst; also as tonic. Soaked in water and used as cooling drink during scorching summer (Bhandari, 1990). Used as brain tonic. Plant is supposed with tonic properties. Dried plant powder taken with goat’s milk to gain sexual vigour (Singh and Pandey, 1998). Decoction given to children as growth and health tonic by Bhils (Singh and Pandey, 1998). Used as tonic. Used as cooling medicine. Plant fresh juice given to children in weakness (Singh and Pandey, 1998). Eaten raw and supposed to have tonic properties. Hairy mucilaginous seeds soaked in water, which forms a cooling drink (Bhandari, 1990). Used as tonic and cooling drink in fever (Bhandari, 1990). Plant along with ghee is used as tonic for children to make them strong (Caius, 1998). Seeds wetted in water and given to children also form a cooling and refreshing drink during summer (Bhandari, 1990). Used as tonic. Dried fruits are used during summer in making cold and soothing drinks. Fruits are grounded and powder is consumed with jaggery or sugar. (Purohit and Khan, 1981).

Utilization

Ethnobotanical Importance of Flora of Hot Arid Regions of India 37

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Nutraceutical Values of Horticultural Crops and Products

Conclusion Traditional utilization of wild plants in hot arid region as food and also in primary health care particularly as tonic and cooling drinks in hot scorching summer represents an immense information base. Wild plants as emergency food in Thar Desert have different status, some of these species are commonly consumed in normal times, some are eaten only in scarcity, some are eaten particularly by children and some of the species are used in famine when there is nothing to eat like utilization the bark of Khejari (Prosopis cineraria) only in time of extreme condition. As Maheshwari (1995) emphasized that “rich and untapped flora that human societies have been using for their many needs must be investigated for the purpose of developing new sources of proteins, fats, starches, alkaloids, therapeutic agents and pharmocodynamic compounds”. The adapted species of hot arid zone have specific traits; such of these traits could prove very important in future for climatic changes or the emergence of new diseases. There is also need to refine the propagation techniques and study the agronomic potential of some of the promising species of Thar Desert like the herbs Blepharis sindica, Caralluma edulis, Ceropegia bulbosa, Glossonema variens etc. for large scale cultivation with a view to their maximum utilization. For example Caralluma edulis, locally called as Pimpa or Pippa is eaten raw, particularly when fresh in the morning or cooked as vegetable (Ali, 1986) and rich in medicinal properties (Chopra et al., 1956). Therefore, it is important to collect, evaluate and document this precious traditional heritage of the arid region for future generation.

Further Reading Ali, S.I. 1986. Under-exploited economic plants of Pakistan. Journal of Arid Environments, 11:17-25. Ahmad, Z., Mehmood, S., Ifzal, R.,.Malik, A., Afza, N., Rashid, F., Mahmood, A. and Iqbal, L. 2007. Butrylcholinesterase inhibitory triterpenes from Salsola baryosma. Polish Journal of Chemistry, 81: 1427-1432. Ahmad, Z., Mehmood, S., Fatima, S., Malik, A., Ifzal, R., Afza, N., Iqbal, L., Latifand M. and Nizami T.A. 2008. Structural determination of salsolins A and B, new antioxidant polyoxyygenated triterpenes from Salsola baryosma, by 1D and 2D NMR spectroscopy. Magn. Reson. Chem., 46: 94-98. Bhandari, M. M. 1974. Native reserves as famine foods in Rajasthan desert. Economic Botany, 28: 73-81. Bhandari, M.M. 1990. Flora of the Indian Desert. MPS Repros, Jodhpur. Caius, J.F. 1998. The Medicinal and Poisonous Plants of India. Scientific Publishers, Jodhpur. Chopra, R.N., Nayer, S.L. and Chopra, I.C. 1956. Glossary of Indian Medicinal Plants. CSIR, New Delhi. Gibbons, S, Denny, B. J, Ali-Amine, S., Mathew, K. T, Skelton, B. W, White, A. H and Gray, A. I. 2000. NMR spectroscopy, X-ray crystallographic, and molecular modeling studies on a new pyranone from Haloxylon salicornicum. Journal-of-Natural-Products. 2000, 63: 6, 839-840. Goyal, Madhu and Choudhary, S. 2005. Nutrient composition of Kheep (Leptadenia pyrotechnica) –a dry land product.(Abstract) In: National Seminar on Commercialization of Horticulture in Non-traditional Areas. 5-6 Feb. 2005, CIAH, Bikaner.

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Gupta, R. K. and Kanodia K.C. 1968. Plants used during scarcity and famine period in dry regions of India. J. Agric. Trop. Bot . Appl. 40: (7&8) 265-285. Hussain, S., Ahmed, E., Malik, A., Ferheen, S., Jabbar, A., Ashraf, M., Lodhi, M.A. and Choudhary, M.I. 2006. Recursterols A and B, Chymotrypsin Inhibiting Sterols from Haloxylon recurvum. Polish J. Chem. 80:409-415. King, G. 1869. Famine foods of Marwar. Proc. Asiat Soc. Bengal 38: 116-122. King, G. 1870. Notes on vegetable products used as food during late famine in Rajputana. Trans. Bot. Soc. Edinbergh 10: 198. Kumar, S. and Parveen, F. 2000. Floristic diversity as a source of household traditional and commercialized remedies in arid western Rajasthan, India. Journal of Economic and taxonomic Botany, 24 : 495-505. Kumar, S., Parveen, F. and Goyal, S. 2004. Ethnoveterinary plants in the Indian arid zone. Ethnobotany 16 : 91-95. Kumar, S., Parveen, F., Goyal, S. and Chouhan, A. 2005. Trading of ethnomedicinal plants in the Indian arid zone. Indian Forester, 131: 371-378. Purohit, M.L. and Wajid Khan 1981. Socio-economic aspects. pp. 59-65. In: Man, H.S. and S.K. Saxena (Eds.) Bordi (Ziziphus nummularia) A Shrub of the Indian Arid Zone-Its Role in Silviculture. CAZRI, Jodhpur. Maheshwari, J.K. 1995. Ethnobotanical resources of hot, arid zones of India. pp. 235-249. In: Ethnobotany: Evolution of a Discipline (Schultes , R.E. and von Reis, S. (Eds.), Chapman & Hall, London. Saxena, S. K. 1979. Plant foods of western Rajasthan. Man and Environment, 3: 35-43. Shankar, V. 1988. Life support species in the Indian Thar Desert. pp. 37-41 In: Life Support Plant Species: Diversity and Conservation (Paroda, R.S., Kapoor P., Arora R. K. and Bhag Mal (Eds.). National Bureau of Plant Genetic Resources, New Delhi. Shankarnarayan K. A. and Saxena S. K. 1988. Life supporting arid zone plants in famine period. pp. 55-59. In: Life Support Plant Species: Diversity and Conservation (Paroda, R. S., Kapoor P., Arora R. K. and Bhag Mal (Eds.). National Bureau of Plant Genetic Resources, New Delhi. Shekhawat, G. S. and Anand, S. 1984. An ethnobotanical profile of Indian desert. J. Econ. Taxon. Bot. 5: 591-598. Singh, J. P., Soni, M. L., Beniwal, R.K., Mondal, B.S. and Sanjay Dasora. 2003. Lila LanaPashimi Rajasthan ki aanban. Parti Bhumi Samachar April-June 2003, pp. 20-22. (Hindi). Singh, J.P., Beniwal, R.K. and. Yadava, N.D. 2004. Ethnobotanical importance of cucurbits in India. Pp. 203-219. In: P.L. Saroj, B.B. Vashishtha and D.G. Dhandar (Eds.) Advances in Arid Horticulture Vol.I. International Book Distributing Co., Lucknow. Singh, J.P., Beniwal, R.K., Soni, M.L. and Mondal, B.C. 2004. Ethnic uses of Phog (Calligonum polygonoides L.) and its germplasm conservation. Range Management and Agroforestry, 25: 43-47. Singh, J.P.,. Rathore V.S and Beniwal, R.K. 2006. Perennial medicinal plants for rainfed farming system in arid region. Indian Journal of Arid Horticulture 1: 8-14. Singh, V. and Pandey, R .P. 1998. Ethnobotany of Rajasthan. Scientific Publishers, Jodhpur.

Nutraceutical Values of Horticultural Crops and Products, pp 41-43 © 2018, New India Publishing Agency, New Delhi, India Editors: Dhurendra Singh, P. N. Sivalingam, Pinaki Acharyya and S.R. Meena

6 Antioxidant Profile of Selected Asian Vegetables Charanjit Kaur and Manender Singh

Introduction Vegetables are essentially important functional foods capable of providing additional physiological benefits such as delaying onset of chronic diseases apart from meeting basic nutritional requirements. Vegetables constitute a significant source of carotenoids, phenolics, vitamin C, flavonoids and glucosinolates which boost the immune mechanism and have medicinal properties. The antioxidants in tomato, onions, carrots, garlic, brussel sprouts, peppers and green leafy vegetables and their potential health benefits are critically discussed. Oxidative damage to biological molecules like DNA, protein and lipids induced by free radicals is considered to be linked with many degenerative diseases such as cardiovascular, cancer, ocular and neurological such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s. Antioxidants from plant sources preserve an adequate function of immune cells against homeostatic disturbances and act as functional foods. Functional foods are foods which besides fulfilling the basic physiological function, have health promoting effect. There is a considerable epidemiological evidence indicating association between diets rich in vegetables and a decreased risk of cardiovascular disease and certain forms of cancer. Diets rich in fruits and vegetables contain high amounts of antioxidant compounds like vitamin C, vitamin E, carotenoids, flavonoids, tannins and other phenolic constituents which boost the immune mechanism. Green leafy vegetables constitute a major part of any balanced diet and are good sources of minerals and vitamins. The ethnobotanical reports offer information on the medicinal properties of green leafy vegetables which include details on their antidiabetic, antihistaminic, anticarcinogenic, and antibacterial activities. In the last decade, the use of amaranth and chenopodium has broadened not only in the common diet, but also in diet of people with celiac disease or allergies to typical cereals. The leaves of amaranth constitute an inexpensive and rich source of protein, carotenoids, vitamin C, and dietary fibre, minerals like

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calcium, iron, zinc, magnesium.Chenopodiun contains high-protein and a balanced amino-acid spectrum with high lysine (5.1–6.4%) and methionine (0.4–1.0%) contents. Green leafy vegetables are rich sources of carotenoids. It has been reported that available â-carotene from greens in India is 95%, and out of this 90% is contributedby green leafy vegetables. An increased intake of b-carotene rich food in the daily diet may be one of the strategies for improving vitamin A status among children instead of synthetic vitamin A. Cruciferous vegetables such as broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower, Brussels sprouts and kale are rich source of antioxidants. They are an excellent dietary source of antioxidant vitamins and glucosinolates, precursors to a group of isothiocyanates shown to be anticarcinogenic. Dietary antioxidants, vitamins and non-nutrient components such as flavonoids, are present in crucifers and may decrease the risk for certain cancers. Glucosinolates are not directly bioactive, but their hydrolysis products are thought to protect against cancer. For example, sulforaphane, the hydrolysis product of the glucosinolate glucoraphanin, is highly potent at up regulating detoxification enzymes in cell culture and is reported to prevent mammary cancer in rodents. The consumption of tomatoes has been proposed to reduce the risk of several chronic diseases such as cardiovascular diseases and certain types of cancer and especially prostate cancer. In addition, tomato consumption leads to decreased serum lipid levels and low density lipoprotein oxidation. These health protective effects have been widely attributed to the presence of key antioxidants such as lipid-soluble lycopene and â-carotene, as well as water soluble vitamin C, and compounds of intermediate hydrophobicity such as quercetin glycosides, naringenin chalcone, and chlorogenic acid. All of these are known to contribute significantly to the antioxidant activity of tomato. Brinjal is high in phenolics and anthocyanin compounds. Recent studies have shown that certain varieties of brinjal are high in alpha- glucosidase inhibitor activity making it an ideal food crop for the management of type-2-diabetes. Studies have shown that brinjal extracts suppress the development of blood vessels required for tumour growth and metastasis. Extracts from brinjal skin have demonstrated high capacity in scavenging of superoxide free radicals and inhibition of hydroxyl radical generation by chelating ferrous iron. Superoxide radicals generated in vivo are usually converted into hydrogen peroxide, and like other free radicals, can damage lipids, proteins and DNA. Peppers is yet another healthy vegetable and excellent source of flavonoids, which of late have aroused great interest owing to their antioxidant activity, surpassing that of many other antioxidants. Fresh sweet peppers are also a rich source of ascorbic acid with its content ranging from 76 to 243 mg 100 g-1 fresh weight basis. Their attractive red colour is due to the profuse synthesis of various carotenoid pigments during ripening. These include oxygenated carotenoids such as capsanthin, capsorubin and crypto-capsin, which are exclusive to this genus and have been shown to be effective free radical scavengers. In addition, peppers are rich in polyphenols, particularly the flavonoids, quercetin and luteolin.

Antioxidant Profile of Selected Asian Vegetables

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Onions have been shown to contain large amounts of flavonoids, and constitute one of the major sources of flavonoids in diets. They are reported to promote cardiovascularhealth exhibiting decreased rates of atherosclerosis orthrombotic disease in populations with increased onionintake. Onion juice contains between 200 and 600 mg hesperidin/L and 15-85mg narinutin/L, and a single glass of orange juice may contain between 40 and 140 mg flavanone glycosides. Carrots constitute a valuable source of health promoting ingredients such as carotenes and thus important in human nutrition. Besides chlorogenic acid, caffiec acid and its derivatives were identified. Carrots are a major single source of provitamin A providing 17% of total vitamin A consumption. Black carrots are a good source of anthocyanin pigments. The anthocyanin content of black carrot was reported to be 1750 mg kg-1fresh weight .They also contain high amounts of acylated anthocyanins. Anthocyanins are considered as potential replacements for synthetic colours because of their bright attractive hue and water solubility that allows their incorporation into aqueous food systems; they may also possess health benefits. Garlic has been playing one of the most important dietary and medicinal roles in human beings for centuries. A wide array of therapeutic effects, such as hypolipidaemic, antiatherosclerotic, hypoglycaemic, anticoagulant, antihypertensive, antimicrobial, antidote (for heavy metal poisoning) and hepatoprotective, has been reported. Furthermore, it exhibits anticancer and chemopreventive activities of selenium and vitamins A and C, and low levels of calcium, magnesium, sodium, iron, manganese and B-complex vitamins. It also has a high phenolic content.

Further Reading Abushita, A.A., Daood, H. G. and Biacs, P. A. 2000. Change in carotenoids and antioxidant vitamins in tomato as a function of varietal and technological factors. J Agric Food Chem., 48: 2075–2081. Amagase, H. 2006. Clarifying the real bioactive constituents of garlic.J Nutr, 136: 716S–725S. Berti, C., Riso, P., Brusamolino, A. and Porrini, M. 2005. Effect on appetite control of minor cereal and pseudocereal products.British J Nutr, 94: 850–858. Chuah, A, M., Lee, Y.C, Yamaguchi, T., Takamura, H., Yin., L.J. and Matoba, T. 2008. Effect of cooking on the antioxidant properties of coloured peppers. Food Chem111: 20–28. Devasagayam T.P.A. and Sainis, K.B. 2002. Immune system and antioxidants, especially those derived from Indian medicinal plants, Indian J Expt Bio., 40: 639–655. Kaur, C. and Kapoor, H.C. 2001. Antioxidants in fruits and vegetables.The Milleniums health.Inter J Food Sci and Tech., 36:703-725. Kubo, I., Fijita, K., Kubo, A., Nehei, K and Gura, T. 2004. Antibacterial activity of coriander volatile compounds against Salmonella choleraesuis. J Agric & Food Chem., 52: 3329–3332. Matsubara, K., Kaneyuki, T., Miyake, T., Mori, M. 2005. Antiangiogenic activity of nasunin, an antioxidant anthocyanins in eggplant peels. J Agric Food Chem., 53:6272–6275.

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7 Improvement of Tomato for Lycopene Content S. Raja, S.F.D Sousa and T.A. More

Introduction The semiarid and arid ecosystem is not only neglected in India but also the whole world in respect of socio-economic and scientific development. Middlefon and Thomas, (1997) reported the arid and semi arid covers 47% of land surface of the plant and home town to 1/3 of human population. Conventional plant breeding so far only increased the yield of crops grown under arid tropics at about half the rate achieved for crops grown in temperate regions (Turner, 2004, b). The major crop of other ecosystem are considered as under exploited crop of arid ecosystem. Tomato (Lycopersicon esculentum Mill.), is one such crop, which was domesticated in ancient Peru, has become the most popular and widely consumed vegetable in the world today, for its rich flavor and high nutritional value (Vitamins A and C), short growth cycle, and relatively high yield. Although tomato is grown across various ecosystems, high temperature affects the performance of tomato genotypes substantially. Sato et al. (2000) reported that the plants remain longer period in the high temperature showed drastic fruit set reduction in tomato, due to a simultaneously and/or sequentially impaired series of reproductive processes, i.e. pollen production and development, ovule development, pollination, pollen grain germination, pollen tube growth, fertilization and fruit initiation. However, tomato is being preferred by the consumers uniformly irrespective of regional, ecological disparity both as salad and in processed forms, for which the attractive red colour and improved nutritional quality are most important characters (Lurie et al., 1996). Various studies revealed that relatively high temperatures (38°C) inhibited production of lycopene, an important pigment provides rich and attractive red colour to the pericarp of the fruits and vital in deciding the market value of the fruits. An average yearly consumption of tomato is around 17 kg per capita in India, but in Italy and Greece it exceeds 55-60 kg. In tomato, the consumer demand for healthful food products provides an opportunity to develop a market for food and

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pharmaceutical-grade lycopene rich products. Industrial production of lycopene from tomatoes is in high demand by pharmaceutical companies and for functional food development by food industry.

Factor Responsible for Lycopene in Tomato Lycopene content varied among varieties (Kuti and Konuru, 2005), stage of picking, storage ripened or vine ripened (Gould, 1992). Lycopene content varies in the fruit due to many factors. Al-Wandawi et al. (1985) reported that tomato skin contains 12 mg lycopene/100 g skin (wet basis), while whole mature tomato contains only 3.4 mg /100 g (wet basis). The concentration of lycopene in tomato skin is about three times higher than in whole mature tomatoes. Some deep-red varieties contain more than 15 mg per 100 g, whereas the yellow varieties contain only about 0.5 mg per 100 g (Hart and Scott, 1995). Liu and Luh (1977) reported that the harvest maturity affected carotenoids in tomato paste. Ellis and Hammer (1943) also found that there was a greater concentration of lycopene and other carotenoids in the stem end than in the blossom end of the fruit, the transverse segments having intermediate contents. Fruits picked green and ripened in storage are substantially lower in lycopene than vine-ripened fruits (Gould, 1992). Kuti and Konuru (2005) reported that lycopene content varied significantly among the tomato varieties, with cherry tomato types having the highest lycopene content. Greenhouse-grown cluster and round tomatoes contained more lycopene (30.3 mg/kg) than field-grown tomatoes (25.2 mg/kg), whereas cherry tomato types had a higher lycopene content in field-grown (91.9 mg/kg) than in greenhousegrown (56.1mg/kg) fruits. Ibivoye et al. (2009) reported lycopene range from 70.25 to 147.29µg/g in cherry tomato landraces.

Problem of Tomato Cultivation Under Semiarid and Arid Ecosystem However, the real hurdle in the cultivation of tomato with high lycopene under heat stress condition is that the fruits are pendent in nature, the stalk end of the fruits exposed more time to sun rays than blossom end causes more lycopene loss in the stalk end where lycopene found in greater concentration. It has been reported that vine ripe fruits yield more lycopene emphasize the need to retain the fruits until it ripens in the plant itself than harvesting at green stage of fruits. However, it is great difficult to retain the crop in the field for long period in the heat stress. The field grown cherry type tomato yields more lycopene than green house cultivated is a way to look in to, however, the cherry tomato are very smaller in size with flesh thickness of 0.2cm loose market value as bigger size with attractive red colour is preferred much by the consumers, where bigger fruit has lesser concentration of lycopene, further, style elongation is primary hurdle of higher fruit set where cherry tomato sets fruits more under heat stress condition. Hence, developing larger fruit size with greater concentration of lycopene from cherry tomato (or) developing greater concentration of lycopene in the existing commercial variety with bigger size fruits are the two approaches to investigate under heat stress condition.

Improvement of Tomato for Lycopene Content

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Why Tomato and Lycopene? Increasing clinical evidence supports the role of lycopene as an important antioxidant which provide protection against prostate cancer, lung cancer, and a broad range of epithelial cancers (Micozzi et al., 1986; Olson, 1986; Levy et al., 1995). Lycopene was first isolated in 1873 and only in the last decade it has become widely recognized as a potent antioxidant and a potential protector against the risk of certain types of cancer and cardiovascular diseases. Lycopene is synthesized in many fruits and vegetables. However, the major food sources of lycopene are tomato-based products which supplies 85% of dietary intake of lycopene. Other good sources are watermelon, guava, papaya, apricots, pink grapefruit and blood oranges. Lycopene has also been found to be a potent and specific inhibitor of cancer cell proliferation (Levy et al., 1995; Nahum et al., 2001). Lycopene’s activity in retarding cell cycle progression may explain by contact inhibition and gap junction, is one of the mechanisms that control excessive cell division of cancer cell in crowded surroundings of normal cell. Normal cells are both contact-inhibited and have a functional gap-junction, whereas most tumor cells exhibit fewer of these structures. Lycopene was found to induce the formation of the protein connexin 43, one of the major building blocks of these channels, and thereby to restore gap junctions (Zhang et al., 1992). The quenching constant of lycopene was found to be more than double that of b-carotene and 10 times more than that of á-tocopherol, which makes its presence in the diet of considerable interest (Di Mascio et al., 1991; Conn et al., 1991; Devasagayam et al., 1992; Ribaya-Mercado et al., 1995). The serum level of lycopene and the dietary intake of tomatoes have been inversely correlated with the incidence of cancer (Helzlsouer et al.,1989; Van Eenwyk et al., 1991). The correlation between consumption of tomatoes and the diminished cancer risk is related to an increased supply of lycopene.

Lycopene Biosynthesis The carotenoid biosynthesis pathway in plants has been largely worked out (reviewed by Della Penna and Pogson, 2006; Fraser and Bramley, 2004; Hirschberg, 2001; Romer and Fraser, 2005). Phytoene is the precursor formed from two molecules of geranylgeranyl diphosphate (GGPP) in the central isoprenoid pathway. Four desaturation steps give rise to lycopene; cyclizations at both ends of the lycopene molecule produce a- or b-carotene which undergo hydroxylation at C3 and C3¢ to form the xanthophylls lutein and zeaxanthin, respectively. To study the regulation of carotenoid biosynthesis, analyzis on the genetic mechanisms that control the accumulation of lycopene in tomato (Solanum lycopersicum) fruit during ripening have revealed that accumulation of lycopene in fruit is correlated with differential expression of genes encoding biosynthetic enzymes during the ‘breaker’ stage of fruit development. Expression of genes for all enzymes upstream of lycopene is up-regulated at the ‘breaker’ stage, but the

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genes for lycopene b-cyclase (Lcy-b) and lycopene-cyclase (Lcy-e) are not transcribed. Concomitantly, at this stage, the chloroplasts in the mature green fruit develop into chromoplasts, which adapted to produce and store large amount of crystalline lycopene (Camara et al., 1995; Price et al., 1995; Pyke and Howells, 2002), carotenoid-associated polypeptides synthesized (Simkin et al., 2007) and chlorophyll is degraded (Hortensteiner, 2006). The amount of lycopene that accumulates in the fruit is determined by the rate of synthesis as well as the storage capacity.

Scope for Enhacing Lycopene in Tomato The phenotypic selection for high lycopene could be isolated based on morphometric and genetic as many genes are involved in upregulation or down regulation so as to synthesis high lycopene. The down regulation of Lycopene –e –cyclase could reduce the degradation of lycopene converting in to carotene under heat stress condition. There were many mutants have been isolated for high lycopene but their survival at heat stress was not studied throughly. Two tomato mutants, high-pigment 1 (hp1; Reynard, 1956) and high-pigment 2 (hp2; Soressi, 1975), have been found to accumulate higher concentrations of lycopene in fruit. Phenotypic characterization revealed exaggerated photoresponses during deetiolation, higher chlorophyll levels in immature fruit, and increased plastid compartment size in leaf and fruit cells (Cookson et al., 2003; Kendrick et al., 1994; Kerckhoffs et al., 1997; Peters et al., 1998). Both mutations presumably impaired regulatory functions that control plastid development. The isolation and analysis of a novel tomato mutant that exhibited higher concentrations of carotenoids and chlorophylls in leaves and fruit. The highpigment 3 (hp3) mutation was found to occur in the gene for zeaxanthin epoxidase suggested that the reduced level of abscisic acid (ABA) enhanced fruit lycopene content by increasing the total size of plastid compartment in cells. Wann et al. (1985) reported that lycopene levels in tomato fruit can be increased using a number of genes, including old gold crimson (ogc) and high pigment (hp1, hp2). These genes result in a concentration increase of 40-50% and 100%, respectively, and combining these genes can increase lycopene levels by up to 150%, or approximately 2.5-3 times the lycopene concentration of normal tomatoes. The partially-recessive old gold crimson (ogc) and recessive high-pigment (hp1, hp2) alleles, the frequency of ogc.ogc/hp1.hp1 in the F2 segregating population was approximately one in sixteen, indicating that approximately 94% of segregants will require eventual culling. The hp genes increase total fruit carotenoids, including â-carotene (Palmieri et al., 1978). However, the adverse pleiotropic effects of these genes, such as slow germination and seedling growth, seedling mortality, inferior leaf coverage, brittle stems, low yield, reduced total acidity and SS contents, high sensitivity to various pathogens and premature defoliation, have prohibited widespread commercial use of these genes (Jarret et al., 1984; Kerr, 1956 and Wann, 1985).

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Wealth of Gene Pool for Lycopene in India Tomato is a highly self pollinated crop and periodical domestication lead to narrowing variability. The RAPD analysis of Indian tomato revealed that the very low genetic variability existing among the genotypes ignited to broaden the variability using any breeding technique (Archak et al., 2002). Raja (2010) reported that high variability for morphological and floral parameters and very low variation for lycopene in tomato. The regression analysis performed based on fruit weight and lycopene yield indicated no genotype having these two characters together fitted on the regression line except CO3. Therefore, there is a need to select two types of genotypes for further study. Based on these facts, in the present study, CO3 and Arka Meghali had larger fruit size at heat stress condition lacking high lycopene (cluster-I) and EC-521038 and EC-24296 had high lycopene content lacking larger fruit size (cluster-III) although they showed consistent performance over the seasons. Juan et al. (2005) also selected some nutritional and biochemical indicators in selecting salt tolerant tomato cultivars. Further lack of wide variance for fruit size and lycopene in the existing germplasm fails to provide the desired recombinants, and it is necessary to resort to other resources to create variation.

Induced Variation for Lycopene in Tomato Induced mutation is one such viable tool to generate variability for fruit size, lycopene and yield under heat stress condition and their genetic shift over the generation needs to be examined systematically. However, very few such attempts have been made to expand the genetic diversity of the less variable cultivated tomato using mutagenic procedure for heat stress. The demand for new mutants in tomato is big and high lycopene at heat stress. The regression analysis too indicated that the lack of genotypes having high lycopene coupled with high yield under heat stress condition. Hence, selection of more than two geneotypes is very much essential for the improvement so as to attain mutant with both these charcaters (Fig-1).

Fig.1: Regression depicts the genotypes for lycopene and yield in tomato

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The four genotypes such as CO-3, Arka Meghali, EC-521038 and EC-24296 irradiated with Gamma rays and EMS indicated that the percentage of germination was reduced as the mutagenic dosage increased in a linear manner. However, the germination did not affect much at the dose below 300 Gy in gamma rays and 0.25% in EMS. A drastic reduction was noticed at higher doses of gamma rays and EMS. The reason behind the reduction in germination percentage with increase in dose would be the lethal combination of mutant genes which didn’t allow germination of the treated seeds by radiomimetic substances on plants. The similar findings on reduced tendency in germination, vigour and survival in the plants with increased mutagen dose were reported in tomato (Choudhary et al., 1973; Nargis et al., 1998). The colour difference of unripe fruit was an indicator to isolate the mutants as it could be easily isolated considering the fruit colour of parental genotype (control). Among the larger fruit types, CO3 had whitish green fruits and Arka Meghali has green colour fruit at unripe stage, whereas the smaller fruit genotypes, EC-521038 and EC-24296 were green with dark green shoulder. In the present study, EMS treated population was found to have produced higher variants in fruit colour. However, the yellow colour fruit mutant was pronounced only in gamma rays treated population. Seven mutants with dark green shoulder fruits were detected in Arka Meghali at EMS 0.25% compared EC-521038 (4). Peiris et al. (2009) also deducted orange red and orange green mutant in the wild tomato Manik at 32.1kR. Interestingly, the deep red mutants were observed both in larger and smaller fruit genotypes which could easily be isolated by simple visual observation in the field. Few mutants showed deep red colour at stalk end and dull red at distal end were rejected from deep red categories considering its marketable value as the fruits lost its firmness and became loose when the remaining part of the fruit turns red. Small fruit size was categorized as less than ten and two grams from larger and smaller fruit genotypes respectively. Among the mutagens tested EMS registered eight small fruit mutants at 0.25% EMS in EC-521038 compared to Arka Meghali (5). Similarly, the mutants weighing more than 60 g from larger fruit genotype and 45 g from smaller fruit genotype are considered as large fruit mutant. Among the genotypes treated with gamma rays showed the 11 larger fruit mutants in CO3 at 400 Gy indicating that larger fruit genotypes were more responsive in inducing larger fruit mutants with deep red colour compared to smaller fruit genotypes. Twenty large fruit mutants were isolated in Arka Meghali compared to CO3 (19) at 0.25% EMS which showed the highest number (10 and 11 mutants respectively). Interestingly, there were few mutants which showed enhancement in fruit size despite change in the colour. Among the genotype tested, the larger fruit genotypes expressed higher number of red fruit mutant and none of such mutant was detected in the smaller fruit genotypes. EMS treated population of CO3

Improvement of Tomato for Lycopene Content

51

recorded the highest number (5) of mutants at 0.25% EMS induced 3 mutants. Peiris et al. (2009) in tomato also isolated larger fruit size with red colour mutant M-127 and M-121 irradiating Manik at 32.1 kR gamma rays. Menda et al. (2004) also isolated mutants for fruit size (small or large fruits), fruit morphology (long or rounded fruits or other fruit morphology), fruit color (yellow, orange, or darkred fruits or epidermis or green fruit) using EMS. The differential response of colour might be due to gene expression. Ubi et al. (2006) also reported that the expression of the pigment biosynthetic genes has been induced by low temperature and repressed by high temperature. Shaked-Sachray et al. (2002) speculated that temperature might affect not only the synthesis but also the stability and that, therefore, the decrease in pigment concentration at elevated temperatures might result from both a decrease in synthesis and an increase in degradation. A surprising effect of mutation on fruit colour was observed when few mutants showed yellow fruit colour irrespective of fruit size isolated from gamma rays at 400 Gy in CO3, Arka Meghali and EC-521038. No such mutants were observed in EC-24296. Rego et al. (1999) also reported that a yellow tomato fruit mutant cv. Santa Clara, accumulation of lycopene dropped by 99.3% and â-carotene by 77% in ripe yellow fruits, compared to the red wild type. The yellow mutant leaf and flower chlorophyll and total carotenoid concentrations were not affected and mutant of this kind was determined by a recessive allele. Based on reciprocal crosses, fruit color is unlikely to be determined by maternal genes. The economic viable mutants were isolated through induced mutation in tomato using CO3, Arka Meghali, EC-521038 and EC-24296 for early picking, significant variability in fruit size, fruit yield, high lycopene under heat stress condition could be advanced for latter generation for their commercial exploitation (Table-1). Among the mutants, MC-27, ME-12, ME-516, ME-211, ME-220, ME-221 and ME-230 have very good scope for commercial exploitation due to their high lycopene coupled with high yield. MC-62 and MA-47 were isolated for the maximum yield with yellow fruit mutant and have scope as parents in the breeding programme to study ripening mechanism of tomato. Mutants MA-144, ME-31 and ME-16 have scope to act as parents in a breeding program due to high lycopene with low yield and ME-13, ME-16, ME-30 and M-23 have scope of the highest lycopene with small fruit size. It is concluded that 0.25% EMS and 300Gy gamma rays increased variance with respect of all characters. Among the genotypes, CO3 and EC-24296 were found to be more sensitive and responded for most of the characters predicted for promising mutants for higher fruit yield. The mutants like MC-27, ME-12, ME-516, ME-211, ME-220, ME-221 and ME-230 showed yield about 1.9 kg per plant and 7.3-7.6mg/100g lycopene during M3 generation could be recommended for commercial cultivation after attaing homogenity.

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Table 1: Viable mutants of tomato selected for high lycopen and yield Mutants

MC-27 ME-516 ME-12 ME-211 ME-212 ME-220 ME-221 ME-230

Lycopene (mg/100g) 7.27 7.53 7.57 7.7 7.73 7.63 7.55 7.48

Yield (g/Plant)

Lycopene Per cent increment over parent

Yield Per cent increment over parent

2128.4 1915.68 1954.51 2331.29 1956.67 2266.04 2166.01 2292.1

124.6 117.7 116.9 118.9 119.4 117.8 116.6 115.5

161.4 148.6 126.5 150.9 126.6 146.6 140.2 148.3

Further Reading Al-Wandawi, H., M. Abdul-Rahman and K. Al-Shaikhly. 1985. Tomato processing waste as essential raw materials source. J. Agric. Food Chem., 33:804-807. Archak, S., J. L. Karihaloo and A. Jain. 2002. RAPD markers reveal narrowing genetic base of Indian tomato cultivars. Current Sci., 82(9-10):1139-43. Camara, B., Hugueney, P., Bouvier, F., Kuntz, M. and Moneger, R. 1995. Biochemistry and molecular biology of chromoplast development.Int. Rev. Cytol. 163: 175–247. Choudhary, R. C., K. R. Khanna and M.N. Gupta. 1973. Introduction of mutation in tomato by gamma rays. SABRAO.2nd Gene.Cong. P. 93. Conn, P. F., W. Schalch and T.G. Truscott. 1991. The singlet oxygen andcarotenoid interaction. J. Photochem. Photobiol. B. Biol., 11: 41-47. Cookson, P. J., J. W. Kiano, C. A. Shipton, P. D. Fraser, S. Romer, W. Schuch, P. M. Bramley and K. A. Pyke. 2003. Increases in cell elongation, plastid compartment size and phytoene synthase activity underlie the phenotype of the high pigment-1 mutant of tomato. Planta, 217: 896-903. Della Penna, D. and B. J. Pogson. 2006. Vitamin synthesis in plants: tocopherols and carotenoids. Annu. Rev. Plant Biol., 57: 711-738. Devasagayam, T. P. A., T. Werner, H. Ippendorf, H. D. Martin and H. Sies. 1992. Synthetic carotenoids, novel polyene polyketones and new capsorubin isomers as efficient quenchers of singlet molecular oxygen. Photochem.Photobiol.,55: 511-514. Di Mascio, P., S. Kaiser and H. Sies. 1991. Lycopene as the most efficient biological carotenoid singlet oxygen quencher. Arch. Biochem. Biophys., 274:532-538. Fraser, P.D. and P. M. Bramley. 2004. The biosynthesis and nutritional use of carotenoids. Prog. Lipid Res., 43:228-265. Giovannucci, E. 1999. Tomatoes, tomato-based products, lycopene, and cancer: review of the epidemiologic literature. J. Natl. Cancer Inst., 91(4):317-331. Gould, W. V. 1992. Tomato Production, Processing, and Technology,CTI Publications, Baltimore. Hart, D. J. and K. J. Scott. 1995. Development and evaluation of an HPLC method for the analysis of carotenoids in foods, and the measurement of the carotenoid content of vegetables and fruits commonly consumed in the UK. Food Chem., 54: 101-111. Helzlsouer, K. J., G. W. Comstock and J.S. Morris. 1989. Selenium, lycopene, alpha-tocopherol, beta-carotene, retinol, and subsequent bladder cancer. Cancer Res., 49: 6144–6148. Hirschberg, J. 2001. Carotenoid biosynthesis in flowering plants. Curr. Opinion in Plant Biol., 4:210-218.

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Hortensteiner, S. 2006. Chlorophyll degradation during senescence. Annu. Rev. Plant Biol. 57: 55–77. Ibivoye, D.O., P. E. Akin Idowa and O.T. Ademoyegun. 2009. Agronomic and lycopene evaluation in tomato (L.esculentum Mill) as a function genotype. World J. of Agric. Sci., 56:892-895. Jarret, R. L., H. Sayama and E.C. Tigchelaar. 1984. Pleiotropic effects associated with the chlorophyll intensifier mutations high pigment and dark green in tomatoes. J. Amer. Soc. Hort. Sci., 109: 873-878. Juan, M., M. R. Rivero, L. Romero and J. M. Ruiz. 2005. Evaluation of some nutritional and biochemical indicators in selecting salt-resistant tomato cultivars.Environ. and Expt. Bot., 54: 193-201. Kendrick, R.E., J.L. Peters, L.H. Kerckhoffs, A. Van Tuinen and M. Koornneef. 1994. Photomorphogenic mutants of tomato. Biochem. Soc. Symp., 60: 249-256. Kerckhoffs, L. H. J., N. A. M. A. Degroot, A. VanTuinen, M. E. L. Schreuder, A. Nagatani, M. Koornneef and R. E. Kendrick. 1997. Physiological characterization of exaggeratedphotoresponse mutants of tomato. J. Plant Physiol., 150: 578-587. Kerr, E. A. 1956. High pigment ratios. In: Report of the Tomato Genetics Cooperative, 10:18-19. Kuti, J. O. and H. B. Konuru. 2005. Effects of genotypes and cultivation environment on lycopene content in red ripe tomatoes. J. Sci. Food Agric., 85:2021-2026 Levy, J., E. Bosin, B. Feldman, Y. Giat, A. Miinster, M. Danilenko and Y.Sharoni. 1995. Lycopene is a more potent inhibitor of human cancer cell proliferation than either á-carotene or âcarotene. Nutr. Cancer, 24:257-266. Liu, Y. K. and B. S. Luh. 1977. Effect of harvest maturity on carotenoids in pastes made from VF145-7879 tomato. J. Food Sci., 42: 216-220. Lurie, S., A. Handros, E. Fallik and A. Shapira. 1996. Reversible inhibition of tomato fruit gene expression at high temperature. Plant Physiol., 110: 1207-1214. Menda, N., Y. Semel, D. Peled, Y. Eshed, D. Zamir. 2004. In silico screening of a saturated mutation library of tomato. Plant J., 38:861-872. Micozzi, M. S., G. R. Beecher, P. R. Taylor and F. Khachic. 1990. Carotenoid analyses of selected raw and cooked foods associated with a lower risk of cancer. J. Nati. Cancer Inst., 82: 282285. Middlefon, N. J. and D.Thomas. 1997. World atlas of desertification, UNEP, Arnold, London, UK. Nahum, A. K., Hirsch, M. Danilenko, C. K.Watts, O.W. Prall, J. Levy and Y. Sharoni. 2001. Lycopene inhibition cell cycle progression in breast and endometrial cancer cells is associated with reduction in cyclin D levels and retention of p27 (Kip1) in the cyclin E-cdk2 complexes. Oncogene, 20:3428-3436. Nargis, S., M. Gunasekaran, S. Lakshmi and P. Selvakumar. 1998. Effect of gamma irradiation of seed germination and vigour of tomato (Lycopersicon esculentum Mill). The Orissa J. Hort., 26(2): 47-49. Olson, J. 1986. Carotenoid, vitamin A and cancer. J. Nutr., 116: 1127-1130. Palmieri, S., P. Martiniello and G. P. Soressi. 1978. Chlorophyll and carotene content in high pigment and green flesh fruits. In: Report of the Tomato Genetics Cooperative, 28:10. Peiris, R., T. K. Wickramasinghe and S.P. Indrasena. 2009. M 127- A Promising tomato variety developed through induced mutation technique. In:Q.Y. Shu (ed.), Induced Plant Mutations in the Genomics Era. Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, Rome, pp. 379-380. Peters, J. L., Szell, M. and Kendrick, R. E. 1998. The expression of light-regulated genes in the high-pigment-1 mutant of tomato. Plant Physiol., 117: 797-807. Price, C.A., Hadjeb, N., Newman, L.A. and Reardon, E.M. 1995. Chromoplasts. Methods Cell Biol. 50, 189–207.

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Pyke, K.A. and Howells, C.A. 2002.Plastid and stromule morphogenesis in tomato. Ann. Bot 90, 559–566. Raja, S. 2010. Isolation and Characterisation mutants with high lycopene content under heat stress condition for processing in tomato.Ph.D.Thesis submitted in TNAU, Coimbatore. Rego, E.R., F.L. Finger, V.W.D.Casli and A.A.Cardoso. 1999. Inheritance of fruit colour and pigment changes in a yellow tomato (Lycopersicum esculentum Mill) mutant. Genetic and Mol. Biol., 22(1):1-7. Reynard, G. B. 1956. Origin of the Webb Special (Black Queen) tomato.In: Report of the Tomato Genetics Cooperative, 6:22. Ribaya-Mercado, J. D., M. Garmyn, B. A. Gilchrest and R. M. Russell. 1995. Skin lycopene is destroyed preferentially over â-carotene during ultraviolet irradiation in humans. J. Nutr., 125: 1854-1859. Romer, S. and P. D. Fraser. 2005. Recent advances in carotenoid biosynthesis, regulation and manipulation. Planta, 221: 305-308. Sato, S., M. M. Peet and J. F. Thomas. 2000. Physiological factors limit fruit set of tomato (Lycopersicon esculentum Mill.) under chronic, mild heat stress. Plant Cell Environ., 23: 719-726. Shaked-Sachray, L., D. Weiss, M. Reuveni, A. Nissim-Levi and M. Oren-Shamir. 2002. Increased anthocyanin accumulation in aster flowers at elevated temperatures due to magnesium treatment. Physiologia Plantarum, 114: 559-565. Simkin, A.J., Gaffe, J., Alcaraz, J.P., Carde, J.P., Bramley, P.M., Fraser, P.D. and Kuntz, M. 2007.Fibrillin influence on plastid ultrastructure and pigment content in tomato fruit. Phytochemistry, 68: 1545–1556. Soressi, G. P. and F. Salamini.1975. A monomendelian gene inducing parthenocarpic fruits. Rep. Tom. Genet. Coop., 25: 22. Turner, N.C. 2004. Sustainable production of crops and pastures under drought in a Mediterranean environment. Annals of Appl. Biol., 144:139-147. Turner N.C. 2004a. Agronomic options for improving rainfall-use efficiency of crops in dryland farming systems. J.of Experi. Bot., 55: 2413-2427. Ubi, B.W., C. Honda, H. Bessho, S. Kondo, M. Wada, S. Kobayashi and T. Moriguchi. 2006. Expression analysis of anthocyanin biosynthetic genes in apple skin: effect of UV-B and temperature. Plant Science, 170: 571-578. Van Eenwyk, J., F. G. Davis and P. E. Bowen. 1991. Dietary and serum carotenoids and cervical intraepithelial neoplasia. Int. J.Cancer., 48: 34-38. Wann, E. V., E. L. Jourdain, R. Pressey, and B. G. Lyon. 1985. Effect of mutant genotypes hp ogc and dg ogc on tomato fruit quality. J. Amer. Soc. Hort. Sci., 110:212-215. Zhang, L. X., R. V. Cooney and J. S. Bertram. 1992. Carotenoids up-regulate connexin -43 gene expression independent of their provitamin A or antioxidant properties. Cancer Res., 52(2):5707-12.

Nutraceutical Values of Horticultural Crops and Products, pp 55-65 © 2018, New India Publishing Agency, New Delhi, India Editors: Dhurendra Singh, P. N. Sivalingam, Pinaki Acharyya and S.R. Meena

8 Perspectives of Germplasm Collection of Fruits and Vegetables for Nutraceuticals S.K. Malik, D.C. Bhandari , D. Singh and Y.S. Rathi

Introduction Humans are able to live and work in almost all the environmental extremes of the planet earth and also in space due to their remarkable physiological adaptability and/or by modification of environment itself. Adequate nutrition plays a key role in adaptation and accordingly nutritional needs vary to a great extent. Nutraceutical, a term combining the words “nutrition” and “pharmaceutical”, is a food or food product that provides health and medical benefits, including the prevention and treatment of disease. Such products may range from isolated nutrients, dietary supplements and specific diets to genetically engineered foods, herbal products, and processed foods such as cereals, soups, and beverages. Nutraceutical is a broad umbrella term used to describe any product derived from food sources that provides extra health benefits in addition to the basic nutritional value found in foods. Products typically claim to prevent chronic diseases, improve health, delay the aging process, and increase life expectancy. Phytochemical profile in important crops such as ber, aonla, pomegranate, date palm, karoda, bael, aloe vera, cactus pear of arid region have been indicated that there is wide variation among primary and secondary metabolites. Thus it has become imperative to look into markers linked to high contents of bioactive compounds rather than size and sweetness of the fruits during exploration and evaluation of the plant germplasm.

Indian Arid Zone In India, one third of the area is subjected to the characteristic features of aridity. The areas of arid and semi-arid zones in India total 3,14,090 sq km and 9,56,750 sq km, respectively. Besides these, there exists cold desert in Ladakh (J & K), containing 70,300 sq km area as arid and 13,780 sq km as semi-arid areas. The Great Indian Desert also known as ‘Thar Desert’ is marked for scanty

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and erratic rainfall; frequent droughts; intense sunshine; occurrence of frost; high wind velocity; poor soil conditions being sandy, low in organic matter and mineral nutrients; limitation of water for human, animal use and for irrigation; flash floods and added to these soil salinity and alkalinity further deteriorate the situation.

Biological Diversity In spite of harsh conditions for life, the region is rich in biological diversity. The genetic diversity of this region is of great significance because of its adaptability to harsh environmental conditions. Perhaps, it is the storehouse of ‘genes’ of stress tolerance and represent germplasm, which needs to be collected and conserved for its utilization as donor in developing hardy varieties, or for inducing tolerance in otherwise fragile but economically important crops including fruits and vegetables. Arid zone vegetation comprises a wide range of edible fruit bearing and food producing species which play an important role in the nutritional security of children and women in rural and urban areas alike and are relished by them. Most of these fruits are rich sources of micronutrients, vitamins, protein and energy. There are around 30 plant species in arid zone known for their edible use and of these around 20 plant species are known for their edible fruits either raw or use as vegetable (Table 1). To achieve nutritional security for the people, particularly in the arid regions, the genetic resources of fruits and vegetables are of vital importance and need to be worked out for their higher nutraceutical value through biotechnological approaches. Table 1: Some nutriceutically important species of fruits and vegetables in arid and semi-arid regions. S. No.

Type

Species

1.

Fruits

2.

Vegetables

3.

Both

Bael (Aegle marmelos), Ber (Ziziphus Spp.), Gundi (Cordia rothii), Jamun (Syzygium cumini), Khirni (Manilkara hexandra), Pilu (Salvadora Spp.), Pomegranate (Punica granatum) Deshi Bawalia (Acacia Spp.), Drumstick (Moringa oleifera), Kankoda (Momodica dioica), Ker (Capparis decidua), Kumbat (Acacia senegal), Lasora (Cordiamyxa), Water melon, Karonda (Carissa Spp.) and Khejri (Prosopis cineraria)

Plant Genetic Resources Plant Genetic Resources (PGR), the important component of agro-biodiversity; include the entire genetic parentage of all species and varieties of cultivated, wild or semi-domesticated plants. These genetic resources are used for crop improvement in plant breeding to enhance agricultural production and are thus essential for food security for livelihood and the developmental aspirations of every country on earth. They are the primary building blocks for developing new plant varieties and raw materials for the agriculture, pharmaceutical and plant

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biotechnology industry. Their collection and conservation obviously assume importance in the global, national and regional context. For a given taxonomic entity, species or variety, the germplasm is a plant propagule most preferably seed, embryo, embryonic axes, dormant buds and pollen from which the whole plant can be reproduced or propagated. Germplasm collections are assembly of genotypes or population representative of cultivars, genetic stocks, wild species, etc. which are maintained in the form of plants, seeds, in vitro cultures, etc. Individual samples are called entries or accessions. Research studies have been confirmed that the contents of bioactive compounds vary widely among varieties and germplasm of food plants (13-15). This variation is caused by several factors such as environmental factors as climate, soil and fertilization, however, the mostimportant factor determining the content of bioactive compounds is the genetic variation (16-17). Thus, breeders have the opportunity and challenge to produce new varieties of food plants with an improved content of health-related bioactive compounds. In raspberry there was a significant variation in phenolic compounds between varieties. Most of this variation was caused by genetic differences between thecultivars, but there was also a significant effect of environment (18). The colour of the carrot varieties discloses the composition of the different varieties. Yellow varieties contain the carotenoids lutein and ÀÛÞcarotene; orange varieties contain lutein, ÀÛÞ-carotene, ÀÛ.Ý-carotene and ÀÛÞcarotene; and red varieties contain lutein, ÀÛÞ-carotene, ÀÛÞ-carotene and lycopene (19). In Asia, black or purple carrot varieties have been grown and consumed for thousands of years but they are still not very well known in the western world. The reason for the dark colour is that they, different from western varieties, contain the phenolic compounds anthocyanins. In a screening between 15 different black carrot varieties, the total anthocyanin concentration ranged from 45 mg/kg dry matter in ‘Gujarat’ to17,400 mg/kg dry matter in the variety ‘Germany’ (20). Santos and Simon (21) estimated heritability values for ÀÛ.Ý-, ÀÛÞ-, ÀÛÞ, lycopene, phytoene and total carotenoids in carrot. The results showed that the main variation was caused by genetic composition, but the environmental conditions were alsoimportant. In tomato, a significant positive correlation between the content of the carotenoid lycopene and the red colour is found, and the genotype explained 29- 43 % of the variation of lycopene content (22). In Brassica-vegetables, there is a large variation in the content and composition of glucosinolates. For aliphatic glucosinolates in broccoli (sinigrin, glucoraphanin and progoitrin), more than 60 % of the variation were genetic and only 4.5 % could be explained by climate and other environmental factors (23). For the indolyl glucosinolate glucobrassicin in Chinese cabbage, 61 % of the variation was genetic and 9 % of the variation could be explained by climatic factors (24). Glucoraphanin is one of the most abundant glucosinolates present in broccoli and its cognate isothiocyanate is sulphoraphane, a potent inducer of mammalian detoxification enzyme activity and anti-cancer agent. Considerable environmental and genetic variation on the levels of glucoraphanin in broccoli heads are shown, and again, the effect of

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genotype was greater than that of environmental factors (25). Figure 1 shows the variation in the glucoraphanin concentration in 32 broccoli genotypes. From the figure we can see that the broccoli variety ‘Marathon’, one of the main varieties grown in Norway, has a relative high concentration of glucoraphanin. On the other hand the commercial variety ‘Everest’ has a very low concentration. ‘Marathon’ contains about 5 times more glucoraphanin than ‘Everest’. In a grocery store it is not possible toobserve the difference between these broccoli varieties.

Plant Exploration and Germplasm Collection For the sustainable management of PGR, one of the primary activities involved is the exploration and collection of germplasm variability existing in cultivated, semi-domesticated and natural wild conditions of various economically important species. It is the primary and most important step to achieve safe conservation of available genetic diversity for identification of genes for desirable traits and their sustainable utilization. The main objective is to make available maximum amount of prevailing variability and to reveal its nature and extent in different species/ taxa, within species and also its agro-ecological/phyto-geographical distribution. The job of the Plant Explorer, thus is to search/ or look for and capture prevalent diversified basic raw material (germplasm), and facilitate the breeding as well as other programmes related to crop improvement/nutrition/health etc. Collecting germplasm is not as easy as it may sound. It is not simply a matter of being at the right place at the right time and putting a few seeds/or cuttings in bag. Target species with desired attributes need to be found out based on information gathered through various sources. The explorer should not regard himself as simply a collector of potentially useful novelties or curiosities; he is a research worker consciously seeking to understand and record the bases of the uniqueness in the collected germplasm.

Rationale The demand for germplasm is unpredictable and dynamic in nature. One does not know today what genetic material and genes would be required tomorrow and what type of germplasm may be able to fulfil the requirement . The more diversity collected and conserved and made available for future use, the better the chances of fulfilling future’s demand of new genes. However, in practice, some prioritization is necessary at both species level and geographic regions. The main reasons that can be put forward for collecting germplasm of given genepool in given area are that:  It is in danger of extinction or even erosion;  A clear need exists for it, as it was expressed by users both at national and international levels;  The diversity it represents is missing from or insufficiently represented in existing ex situ germplasm collections;  Rescue collecting - if genetic diversity is imminently threatened in an area and

Perspectives of Germplasm Collection of Fruits and Vegetables

 

  

59

in situ conservation methods are not feasible, germplasm collecting may be warranted. For example, there was an urgent need to collect germplasm from site of construction of Sardar Sarovar Dam in Gujarat by the Govt. of India. The catchment area of the dam was suspected to engulf 320 villages. The vegetation including those species with endemic distribution was at risk and in such circumstances high priorities were assigned for rescue collection; Collecting for immediate use-local communities especially engaged in traditional medicine are continuously collecting germplasm for immediate use; Gap filling for future-Immediate users’ need is an important reason for collecting, but the material not considered particularly useful today may turn out to be vital tomorrow; Collecting for research purposes; Opportunistic collecting; and To address issues of intellectual property rights (IPR) and Convention of Biological Diversity (CBD).

Exploration Missions Plant explorations differ from floristic surveys, since here, we are concerned with the procurement of living materials viz. collection of germplasm, to conserve it for present/future use and not merely for herbarium study of plants, their identification, etc., eventually to list out floristic richness. Thus, meticulous planning is required so that the explorer is in the right area at the right time and can look for and collect desired germplasm (ripe seeds, mature fruits/pods, etc.) and study the prevailing diversity in the field. Information related to agro-ecology, crops and their distribution, maturity/harvesting time, etc. in areas of collection, local agencies for contacts, distances involved, places of halts/camping sites, transport of material, besides team composition, etc. is to be pre-acquired before setting out on exploration mission. Based on the needs and priorities in different fruits and vegetables, the exploration missions broadly of two types can ne planned.  Crop-specific: The aim is (i) to collect variability in a particular crop or cultigen, or material of specific attributes, like high nutraceutical value ; powdery mildew resistant types in ber (ii) to collect specific wild relatives, weedy types and related taxa.  Broad-based/multi-crop: The aim is to tap maximum diversity in different fruits and vegetables occurring in the particular region to be explored and maturing almost at the same time like collecting germplasm of minor fruits in identified region. Invariably, genetic resources organizations undertake both kinds of explorations depending on their programme, the priorities assigned to crop/regions, specific needs of the breeders to enrich germplasm variability with desired attributes, and to rescue resources in areas under threat due to developmental activities.

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Exploration Planning and Execution The systematic planning and executing explorations for collection include several strategies. Explorations for collection of germplasm are of paramount importance and panoramic experiences. There should not be any doubt that the success of entire collecting programme depends fully on the execution of purposeful or meaningful explorations. Adequate input on plant exploration and germplasm collecting activity with well established guidelines have already been provided meticulously in several publications, besides, the enriched knowledge on the subject acquired through your long working experience. Leading plant explorers have also covered important aspects on planning and logistics of plant exploration and collection of germplasm and practical difficulties being faced by an explorer or a collector in exploration and collection missions and their on the spot solutions. Nevertheless, it is pertinent to share some of the experiences to make the collecting missions not only fascinating but purposeful/ meaningful observing well established guidelines and code of conduct. While planning, the following points need to be examined carefully by a collector, prior to collection missions:  What to collect?  Why to collect?  Where to collect?  When to collect?  How to collect?  How much to collect?  What else to collect?  What else is required, etc? In general, the following steps are involved in executing systematic collection missions:  Planning  Gathering required information and preparation  Making contacts with local research organizations  Meeting with local researchers and other officials including NGOs  Collecting the germplasm and herbarium specimens  Recording passport data and relevant information  Sorting out and packing collected germplasm and its identification, if required  Reporting and preparation of report and  Processing of collected germplasm.

Some General Considerations Having acquired the basic knowledge of the aspects of sampling, practical considerations would demand application of certain other tactics, as discussed below.

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Survey Tactics Depending on the area of survey, the explorer should cover drier sites earlier and the humid belts later. Likewise, un-irrigated pockets holding primitive germplasm would need collection/survey much ahead of that for the irrigated terrains. It is the function of the exploration programme to locate types specifically adapted to particular features of the environment. The collector should take into consideration areas of survey which vary in soil, climate, topography/elevation etc., to collect specific types suited to such edaphic/ecological situations, physiological stress (saline situations, grown under un-irrigated conditions, plough less agriculture). Altitudinal differences would account for departures from the general conditions of an agro-ecological region. The collector should concentrate more to locate useful germplasm in sites/ villages much away from the approachable roads. As easily accessible sites must have previously been explored, collecting must be planned in inaccessible pockets - valleys and isolated hills, difficult to approach even on foot. Situations representing limits of agriculture viz. altitudinal limit of agriculture in mountains, may offer different germplasm. Likewise, villages at the edge of the desert, isolated coastal belts (islands), and the eco-tonal belts in case of wild germplasm, would present more exacting locations of potential diversity for exploration and collection. The areas holding land races etc. are invariably dominated by native people who eke out marginal existence, based on multi-crop subsistence agriculture in small land holdings. Quite often, these natives consume the previous year’s harvest, so, only limited/thin collection will be possible when exploration is organized in such areas during time other than and crop maturity season. In such situations, the plant explorer should stress on collecting from last year’s harvest to safeguard viability and should take care not to collect infested seeds. The collector must keep in mind that crops often vary with ethnic diversity, and different arrays of materials may be collected even from contiguous belts occupied by different tribes. The explorer should survey such sites/villages very thoroughly, as invariably, such locations are rich in materials in which endemic characters are numerous. The village tribal chief is a very important person to contact. Local guide, interpreter accompanying the party can create goodwill and confidence. Further it is advocated that in such remote areas of survey, the team may take gifts like cigarettes and sweets for the natives. Occasionally money may have to be paid to these farmers to get their harvested produce/to collect desired germplasm. But this must be negotiated through the guide and implemented only when permitted by the village chief, who would then be the first one to receive such gifts.

Guidelines for Explorer’s Daily Routine It is advisable to start work in the morning and get back to the camping site by evening much before sunset especially in tribal, backwards and difficult areas.

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In areas of halt, for preliminary selection of routes, hold discussions with local officers, block/village extension workers, old farmers, school teachers and assemble relevant information on crops and location for collecting germplasm diversity. This should be done each evening (or at some other suitable time) a day ahead of the collecting itinerary. Prepare a tentative programme to be followed, village/route/distances to be covered by jeep and on foot. If the team is coming back to the same camping site, it is better to follow a circuitous collecting route so that more diverse terrain/villages can be covered. No hard and fast line can be set for distances to be covered daily. This would vary depending on the diversity in land forms, topography, vegetation, crops grown and other local factors. Keep a margin for field sampling, village market survey, village courtyards/back yard surveys, visit to threshing yards, visit to villager’s homes to see collected as well as stored (harvested) produce. Much more time will be needed if wild relatives are to be collected. Further herbarium material is also to be collected enroute and time is also required to take photographs, etc. Also keep a margin for discussions enroute with farmers, extension workers and others. After reaching to the camp, take out your collections, label them properly, press herbarium specimens and complete your notes in the log book (diary), as well as in the field data book, if not completed already. Finally, pack daily collecting requirements in your haversack or kit-bag. Make it a principle that you complete your daily work the same evening and before retiring re-equip your bag with items needed for next day collecting. Do not leave it for the following morning. Your diary is to maintain your daily record on terrain being covered, agroecology, vegetation changes observed in area of survey, crop patterns/agriculture of the area, courtyard cultigens, other useful plants of major or minor value, agricultural practices being followed etc. This is your note book wherein your own impressions on all different aspects are to be written for your own use at a later date and for the use of other explorers. Keep on making diagrammatic maps of physiographic-topographic changes, crop pattern variations, etc. and the geographical directions being followed by the party, list out routes, distances, location of sampling sites/markets/villages. In the same way, list out the photographs you take enroute, with details. Be inquisitive to acquire information on anything interesting about economic plants being grown by the tribal’s and something special of the area you visit. Plan visits in local tribal markets and see special haats (bazars organized for collective selling of native produce from many villages). You may get a chance to see enormous diversity including minor/little known cultigens of local distribution. You would come across many wild useful types in these markets. Keep your eyes open to observe all this diversity in relations to what you have already collected. Avoid such an exercise in urban markets.

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Finally, a word of advice, be grateful to the farmers/growers for the help given by them. It may happen that you are in a drought prone tract and crop failure has occurred. The farmer may get angry with you, and refuse to part with his material. Listen to him patiently, place your request humbly and make him realize the importance of your work and his importance in turn. Quite likely, you may bring him around and he agrees to allow you to sample his field/threshing yard, etc. In any case, even if he does not permit you to collect do not lose your patience – keep your temper always cool. When permitted, do not be over greedy to take more material than what has been agreed to and sample carefully – do not spoil/disturb his field/threshing yard, courtyard, etc. Before leaving, never forget to convey to him your gratitude. Exploration, by and large, is something of a personal art. The human element within you would play as much a role, as would your scientific thinking and understanding. Never forget that crop-plants and man are intricately knit together.

Some Tips for Collecting Nutraceutical Rich Germplasm of Fruits and Vegetables Before embarking into exploration for targeted species or trait specific germplasm specifically high nutraceutical contents, collector should find out the potential natural habitats where they are in abundance with rich variability or genotypes with specific traits. Survey of existing information should be done with the help of state reports, regional floras, previous exploration reports, documents, herbaria, floristic surveys and other published works [like maps, climate tables, meteorological information like annual, seasonal or monthly means, extremes, ranges for temperature, rainfall (measure of reliability of rainfall in case of semi-arid tracts), relative humidity, etc.] pertaining to that area, which will help to familiarise with climate, ecology, vegetation and agriculture. Emphasis in should be given particularly to memoirs of explorers, reports, documents, etc. depicting patterns of vegetation, land use, agriculture, etc. prior to the industrialization/ urbanization/ developmental activities. Acquire ethnobotanical information of the targeted species to be collected. For collecting germplasm of specific attributes like nutraceutical, interaction with local people/tribes/local vaidyas/old village people is very much required to obtain the vital information related to its distribution/abundance/specific population or features/uses etc. In tribal dominated area, if several tribes are residing, it would be of interested to find out the use of particular species by them and the methodology used by different tribes even when used for common cause. Acquire knowledge about morphological, reproductive biology and physiological characteristics of targeted plant species to be collected. Physical appearance of plant, morphology of fruit, seed, colour, etc., breeding behaviour, pollination, fruit development, maturity time and other details should be known to the collector. Collection of germplasm or genotype specifically for the high

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nutraceutical value should be identified and collected at right physiological maturity stage of concerned plant part. Availability of neutraceutical contents may vary at various maturity stages in the targeted plant part of a species. . In specific cases, correct time of collecting the germplasm is to be found out from literature and local inhabitants as in case of Euphorbia caducifolia, whose leaves when picked up in morning are sour and turn bitter during day because of CAM. The leaves of this and flowers of Calligonum polygonoides are source of vegetable for the local people. Knowledge about the effect of improved management practices like irrigation, fertilizer doses, etc. on the occurrence of quantity and quality of nutraceuticals should be gathered.

Conclusions Germplasm collected with various assumptions and judgements needs to be confirmed under laboratory/ controlled conditions for the expression of intended trait(s), which completes the process of collecting desired germplasm specifically for the nutraceuticals value. This means that collector (in collaboration with scientists working in plant biochemistry/biotechnology) need to validate the germplasm collected for particular trait. The NBPGR has chalked-out a five-year exploration plan after gap analysis in consultation with concerned crop-based institutes/SAUs under XI Plan. Still more work needs to be done with respect to finding out geographical patterns of diversity in already collected gene bank material, which will offer new correlations helpful for searching germplasm for specific trait. The use of GIS and portable analytical equipments during exploration namely GPS, refractometer, pH meter, chlorophyll fluorescence meter, etc. would further strengthen the collecting of desired germplasm for particular trait. In the present scenario of biotechnology and era of genetic manipulation of organisms there is urgent need to prioritize the specific morphological, physiological and biochemical parameters of genotype along with the traits related to yield potential for viable economical returns. The execution of collecting missions in a very causal or routine manner will not only affect our efforts for the conservation of PGR adversely but also reflect the subsequent activities pertaining to characterization, conservation and utilization of germplasm. Unless the aim of collecting PGR is targeted, the issues related to their management remain unanswered it is, therefore, emphasized to aim for need based specific collection missions keeping in mind the desired futuristic goals.

Further Reading Arora R.K. 1991. Plant diversity in the Indian gene centre. In: R.S. Paroda and R.K. Arora (eds) Plant Genetic Resources: Conservation and Management. International Board of Plant Genetic Resources, Regional Office, New Delhi, India. Pp 25-54. Frankel O.H. and E. Bennett (eds) 1970. Genetic Resources in Plants; Their Exploration and Conservation. Oxford, Blackwell, 538 p. Frankel O.H. and J. G. Hawkes (eds) 1975. Crop Genetic Resources for Today and Tomorrow. Cambridge Univ. Press, London, 492 p.

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Hawkes J.G. 1983. The Diversity of Crop Plants. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, UK.184p. Mehra K.L., R.K. Arora and S.R. Wadhi (eds) 1981. Plant Exploration and Collection. NBPGR Sci. Monograph No. 3, 132 p. Pareek, O. P. and Suneel Sharma 2009.Underutilized Fruits and Nuts.Vol. 1.Diversity and Utilization & Fruits of Subtropical and Temperate Region.Aavishkar Publishers, Distrributors, Jaipuir, India pp.366. Pareek, O. P. and Suneel Sharma 2009.Underutilized Fruits and Nuts.Vol. 2. Fruits of Tropical Region. Aavishkar Publishers, Distrributors, Jaipuir, India. Pp.342. Rathore Mala 2009. Nutrient content of important fruit trees from arid zone of Rajasthan. Journal of Horticulture and Forestry, 1(7): 103-108.

Nutraceutical Values of Horticultural Crops and Products, pp 67-74 © 2018, New India Publishing Agency, New Delhi, India Editors:Dhurendra Singh, P. N. Sivalingam, Pinaki Acharyya and  S.R. Meena

9 Safe Conservation Technologies for Elite Plant Germplasm S.K. Malik, R. Chaudhury and D. Singh

Introduction Several tropical indigenous fruits have still remained underexploited due to the lack of awareness of their potential, market demand and low and erratic bearing in  many  cases.  Though  wild  and  domesticated  diversity  is  composed of  nearly 3000 tropical fruit species, only a few are cultivated on large scale (Vietmeyer, 1990;  Pareek  et al.,  1998).  These  species  (approximately  600  tropical  and subtropical)  are  better  known  in  their  areas  of  diversity and  have  not  yet  been utilized to their full potential inspite of their high economic value. There exists a very  rich  diversity  of  fruits  across  the  tropical  and  sub-tropical  regions  of  the world, with more than 500 species of fruits estimated to be found in Southeast Asia alone. The South and Southeast Asia represents above 300 species of native minor fruits (Arora, 1995). These species are being used by local people as minor fruits  as  well  as  for  medicinal  purposes  as  described  in  the  Indian  system  of medicine. If properly harnessed, this diversity has great potential as a source of food besides meeting multipurpose needs of the local communities (Pareek et al., 1998). Genetic  resources  of  several  arid  and  minor  fruits  are  facing  extinction  in India due to various biotic and abiotic factors (Malik et al, 2010). Although these fruits  provide  food,  nutrition  and  sustenance  to  native  communities,  they  are declining in importance amongst the local populations due to easier access to so called  elite fruits.  The  situation  has thus  generated  an  urgent  need  to  conserve genetic resources of these arid fruit species. In these fruits propagation is usually undertaken  by  seeds  as  no  commercial  cultivars  are  available.  In  some  of  the fruits where elite cultivars have been identified, the germplasm is required to be maintained and propagated by vegetative means. Various conservation approaches are available depending upon the type of explants, duration of conservation and utilization needs. Ex situ conservation of germplasm in the form of seeds is the most convenient and reliable method being practiced in gene banks where goal is

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to extend seed longevity as long as possible. The appropriate conservation methods for  any  taxa  can  only  be  decided  after  ascertaining  its  seed  storage  behaviour (Hong  and  Ellis,  1996;  Malik  et al.,  2003;  Pritchard,  2004).  However,  several species pose problem during conservation due to lack of information on their seed storage behaviour and seed germination  characteristics. Seed storage behaviour in its simplest form is measured in terms of survival and longevity of seed under various storage conditions of temperature and seed moisture content. Information regarding seed storage behaviour was reported for only about 3% of higher plant species (Hong et al., 1996) and 0.2% of tropical trees (Hong et al., 1998). In wild and lesser known plant species, seed storage behaviour is still to be established and in some other cases, it has to be re-assessed for proper categorization (Hong et al.,  1996).  Presently  the  concept  of  continuum  of  seed  storage  behaviour, rather than discrete grouping, based on continuum of seed desiccation tolerance has  been  more  acceptable  (Farrant  et al.,  1988;  Berjak  and  Pammenter,  2001; Tweddle et al., 2003). Unlike annual crops, in perennial fruit trees, maintenance of genetic resources is difficult and methodologies vary depending upon the species. Most of the tropical fruit species are known to have recalcitrant seeds with high moisture content and loses viability on drying. They thus cannot be stored using traditional gene banking at -18 to -20°C. Species which cannot be conserved in seed banks are in general conserved as live plants in field gene banks. However, field collections pose many problems  of  biotic  and  abiotic  stresses  and  face  many  limitations  in  terms  of space and labour requirement, vandalism etc. (Dulloo et al, 2001). Therefore, an alternative method such as in vitro and cryopreservation needs to be developed for their more effective conservation. Cryopreservation in Liquid nitrogen (LN) at -196°C is a promising, safe and cost-effective option for long-term conservation of genetic resources of these species which are sensitive to desiccation and freezing (Engelmann,  2000).  Cryopreservation  of  seeds  in  liquid  nitrogen  was  initially developed  for  the  preservation  of  genetic  resources  of  agriculturally  important species.  The  development  of  simple  cryostorage  protocols  for  orthodox  seeds has  allowed  cryopreservation  of  a  large  number  of  commercial  species  at  low cost,  significantly  reducing  seed  deterioration  in  storage  (Stanwood,  1987). Medium-term conservation strategies have been developed for numerous woody species but their routine use is still restricted with limited application in tropical species  (Drew,  2000). The  aim  of  this  paper  is  to  investigate  the  seed  germination,  seed  storage behaviour and cryopreservation of 16 priority underutilized tropical fruit species of  India.  These  include  Aegle marmelos  Correa  ex  Roxb.,  Buchanania lanzan Spreng., Capparis decidua (Forsk.) Edgew, Carissa congesta Wight, Cordia myxa Roxb.,  Diospyros melanoxylon  Roxb.,  Emblica officinalis  Gaertn.,  Garcinia species, Grewia subinaequalis, D C., Madhuca indica, Manilkara hexandra (Roxb.) Dub.,  Pithecellobium dulce  (Roxb.)  Benth.,  Salvadora oleoides  Decne  (Pilu),

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Syzygium cumini (L.) Skeels, Tamarindus indica Linn. and Ziziphus nummularia (Burm. F.) Wt. et Arn..

Conservation of Arid Fruits Conservation  of  plant  genetic  resources  is  attempted  using  two  basic approaches, the in situ and ex situ ensuring conservation in the natural habitat and in manmade gene banks, respectively. Plant genetic resources comprising a wide range of  useful  plant  species,  possess  diverse  mechanisms  of  reproduction  and regeneration.  Selection  of  suitable  conservation  strategies  depends  upon reproductive and breeding mechanism and physiology of seeds and plant propagules. These factors determine the sample size of the propagules to be stored, and the appropriate  conservation  technologies  to  be  applied. Accordingly,  different conservation strategies have been suggested and utilized by conservation biologists for  achieving successful  conservation  of  targeted  species. Conservation of HGR

In situ

Ex situ

Gene Sanctury* In Field

In Laboratory

Botanical Garden

Seed Genebank*

Herbal Garden

Carrygenebank*

Aroboretum

In vitro Repository

Biosphere Reserve Sacred Grove On farm conservation

Field GenebanK*

Cultivar Clones Varieties Clonally propagated preferred Explants Vegetative tissues (Shoot apices, meristems, dormant buds etc. Semi-wild Seed and clonally propagated preferred explants seeds and vegetative tissues

DNA Bank

Rootstock Clonally and Seed propagated preferred Explants-Vegetative tissues and seeds Natural-wild Seed propagated Preferred Explants Seeds and vegetative tissues

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Conservation of horti-culture genetic resources (HGR) and specifically the elite cultivars of underutilized and arid fruit species which are still grown as natural wild and in semi-wild conditions would require adoption of complementary conservation strategies where, suitable in situ and ex situ conservation methods are to be employed to achieve successful conservation. Within this group of underutilized fruit crops, specific conservation strategy is to be developed and adopted based on extent of genetic diversity available, mechanism of propagation, reproductive biology of species and present biological status of the species. In situ conservation involves promoting growth of plant species in their natural habitats where evolutionary processes continues to operate, making it a dynamic system. Majority of the underutilized fruits grow in the diverse climatic and edaphic conditions and are adapted to arid and semi-arid conditions. Horticulture genetic resources of underutilized fruits comprise following candidates for conservation based on their biological status and propagation method:

Conservation strategies in situ conservation in situ conservation is important for underutilized fruit species still occurring as natural wild or in the semi-domesticated conditions using following two approaches: 1) In natural habitats like protected areas and national reserves: Fruit species specific area based on presence of natural diversity are to be identified for species found as only natural wild namely Buchanania lanzan, Capparis decidua, Diospyros melanoxylon, Manilkara hexandra, Salvadora oleodis, S. persica, Tamarindus indica, Pithecellobium dulce. For species where both natural wild and cultivated genotypes are available, wild populations are to be protected immediately. Such species are Aegle marmelos, Emblica officinalis, Grewia species, Carissa species, Cordia species, Madhuca species and Ziziphus species. Fruit species and possible protected area for in situ conservation is to be finalized based on diversity maps and policy of respective state government. 2) On-farm conservation for local natural selections/cultivars/farmer’s varieties. In some of underutilized fruits local selections or farmers varieties have been developed or identified since time immemorial. These local selections are being grown as isolated plants or in small numbers in the homestead gardens, farmers fields, backyards or in the common panchayat lands in villages. Such selections need urgent attention for further characterization, evaluation and on-farm conservation. Underutilized fruits where such selections are identified and available are Syzygium cumini, Cordia myxa, Tamarindus indica, Aegle marmelos, Emblica officinalis and Ziziphus species.

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ex situ Conservation Field Genebanks ex situ conservation of underutilized fruits is important to safeguard the genetic wealth  and  to  use  germplasm  for  the  genetic  improvement  to  develop  desirable cultivars or varieties. Field genebanks have an important place in conservation and maintenance of clonally propagated species, tree species with long juvenile phase, species that do not produce true-to-type seed, or produce recalcitrant seeds whose laboratory  conservation  technology  has  not  been  standardized  so  far.  Presently several field genebanks for diverse horticultural species are operational throughout the world. In India field gene banks of aonla, ber, lasoda,  ker, khejri, date palm, pomegranate, citrus, mango, mulberry, oil palm and several other fruit species have been established and are being maintained at state and ICAR horticultural institutions or state agricultural universities at different locations. As far as underutilized fruits are concerned field gene bank conservation has been recently undertaken especially under the AICRP on Arid Fruits at various ICAR institutes namely Central Institute for Arid  Horticulture,  Bikaner.,  Central  Institute  for  Sub-tropical  Horticulture, Lucknow., Central Arid Zone Research Institute, Jodhpur., NBPGR Regional Station, Jodhpur., Indian Institute of Horticulture Research, Bangalore and at state agricultural universities namely CCSHAU, Hisar and Regional Station, Bawal, Haryana; MPKV, Rahuri, Maharashtra; GAU, Sardar Krushinagar, Gujarat; SKN College of Agriculture, RAU, Jobner, Rajasthan; MPUAT, Udaipur,  Rajasthan; NDUAT, Faizabad, Uttar Pradesh; RAU, Bikaner,  Rajasthan; and  other state horticulture  stations at Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh and other states.

in vitro Genebank At  ICAR-NBPGR  New  Delhi  a  very  good  facility  of  in vitro  Genebank  is available for multicrop medium-and long-term conservation facility.Many species of fruits, tuber and bulbous crops, spices, plantation and industrial crops, medicinal, aromatic and rare/endangered plants are maintained in vitro, under culture room conditions and/or at low temperature.Under extreme environmental conditions of arid ecosystem, in situ conservation of germplasm under field gene bank is very difficult  and  subjected  to  damage  either  by  extreme  low  temperature  or  high temperature. Many times drought conditions also exert detrimental effect on the plant growth and development. During current past years at Central Institute for Arid Horticulture, Bikaner, Rajasthan about 50 important accession of different horticultural crops, such as ber, aonla, lasoda, pomegranate, date palm, karonda, mulberry and cactus pear have been lost. Therefore, there is a pressing need of developing  complementary  conservation  techniques  for  important/elite  type germplasm. Although, in-vitro conservation technique has been developed in many horticultural crop species, it has not been explored for a majority of the crops due to it’s high initial cost and lack of awareness. The principles generally adopted for different species such as maintaining slow growth under low temperature, use of

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different  osmoticum  substances,  low  photon  conditions  and  media  containing growth retardant chemicals are either costly or may affect genetic stability of the plantlets  under  in vitro  conservation  conditions.  Keeping  in  view  the  inherent problem  of arid  ecosystem and  limitations  of  in vitro conservation  method,  we have  developed  cost  effective  method  of  in vitro  conservation  for  selected horticulture  species  such  as  cactus  pear(Oputia ficus indica),  aloe  vera (A. barbendisos) and mulberry (Morus alba). In case of cactus pear and aloe vera two types  of media  were developed for  slow growth  and progressively another for  revival  of  root  and  shoot  growth.  The  frequency  of  sub-culturing  was remarkably  reduced  at  interval of  8-12  month., 60% injured  plantlets of  cactus pear and aloevera during growth resting stage were revived successfully in growth promoting  media. In vitro  conserved  cultured  plantlets  were  maintained  under normal environmental conditions of cultured room having 16/8 hrs photoperiod and 1000 lux light intensity. Using these approaches, the elite germplasm of cactus pear, aloevera and mulberry has been maintained successfully.

Cryogenebank Conservation Conservation of underutilized fruit species is being undertaken in the laboratory in  genebank  and  cryogenebank  at  NBPGR,  New  Delhi.  Conservation  of  plant germplasm in the form of seeds is the most convenient and reliable method being practiced in genebanks. Germplasm of tropical underutilized fruits species where the seeds are relatively larger and have high moisture content at the time of shedding pose  problems  in  traditional  conservation.  Hence,  there  is  need  to  study  their basic seed physiology, longevity and seed storage behaviour. Seed storage behaviour in its simplest form is measured in terms of survival and longevity of seed under various storage conditions. Information on this is available for only about 3% of the higher plant species (Hong and Ellis, 1996). Various research groups in different countries are undertaking research on this aspect mainly on their indigenous species. Seed storage behaviour in several cases is misinterpreted because of scanty data generated on survival and longevity of seed and lack of detailed information on physiological  characteristics.  Conservationist  can  recommend  and  adopt  short, medium and long-term seed storage only after correct identification of seed storage behaviour. Seed storage behaviour has broadly been divided into three categories. Initially Roberts (1973) defined two categories namely orthodox and recalcitrant. Later another category of seed storage behaviour was  designated by Ellis et al. (1990) and termed intermediate, where the behaviour is in between orthodox and recalcitrant.  Orthodox  seeds  can  be  desiccated  at  desired  moisture  content  and can be conserved in the conventional genebanks comprising cold storage modules maintained at  –20oC.  While  non-orthodox  (intermediate  and  recalcitrant)  seeds are not amenable to conventional genebank regimes, being sensitive to desiccation and chilling injury, and thus, require special conservation protocols. Many plant species especially of tropical origin, e.g. rubber, several Citrus species, Garcinia species, jackfruit, cocoa, Madhuca species produce such seeds. Several different

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methods based on cryopreservation have been developed for genebank conservation of  such  non-orthodox  seeded  species.  Cryopreservation,  storage  of  biological materials at ultralow temperatures (-196°C) is the only method available for longterm conservation of non-orthodox seeds and several vegetative explants such as shoot  apices, meristems,  dormant  buds and  somatic  embryos. Conservation of germplasm in the form of seeds for underutilized fruits species which are predominantly cross pollinated, only ensures the genepool conservation of these species due to the heterozygous nature of seeds. As most of these species are  found  naturally  wild  or  semi-wild  and  propagated  through  seeds  in  nature, conservation of available genetic variability essentially required for the selection of  desired  genotypes  needs  to  be  protected  safely  and  timely.  In  most  of  these fruit  species,  farmers  or  local  people  are  propagating  progenies  of  these  fruits using seeds as no commercial cultivars are available and even if few have been identified,  planting  material  is  not  available.  Once  the  promising  genotypes  or cultivars are identified in these species, conservation of their vegetative tissues to achieve true-to-type conservation can be attempted using in vitro methods. It is to emphasize here that conservation of vegetative tissues in these tropical woody species  would  be an enormous task  as  most  of  the  species  are  known  for  their recalcitrance  as  far  as  in vitro establishment  is  concerned  and  equally  difficult task would be to successfully cryopreserve the vegetative tissues excised from in vitro  cultures.  It  is,  therefore,  recommended  to  conserve  the  available  genetic diversity of such economically important species in the best possible way to fulfill the objective of safe guarding these indigenous species from genetic erosion.  For genetic improvement and genotype conservation, collected and characterized elite genotypes  are  presently  being  conserved  in  the  field  genebanks  at  various horticultural  organizations.  It  is  therefore  emphasized  that  a  complementary conservation  strategy  (Rao,  1998)  involving  the  use  of  more  than  one  relevant approach  would  be  the  best  option  for  achieving  safe  conservation  of  these underutilized fruit species facing severe threat of extinction.

Further Reading Arora, R.K. 1995. Promoting conservation and use of tropical fruit species in Asia. Proc. Expert Consultation  on  Tropical  Fruit  Species  of Asia,  MARDI,  Kuala  Lumpur,  Malaysia, 17-19 May 1994 (R.K.Arora and V.Ramanatha Rao, eds.) IPGRI Office for South Asia, New Delhi, India, p. 19-30. Chandel, K.P.S., Chaudhury, R., Radhamani, J, and Malik, S.K. 1995. Desiccation and freezing sensitivity in recalcitrant seeds of tea, cocoa and jackfruit. Ann. Bot. 76 : 443-450. Chaudhury, R. and Malik, S.K. 1999. Cryopreservation and in vitro technology for conservation of recalcitrant seeds of some tree species. In: M. Marzalina, KC Khoo, N Jayanthi, FY Tsan and B Krishanapillay (eds.), Recalcitrant Seeds. Proc. IUFRO Seed Symp. FRIM, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, p.119-131. Chaudhury, R. and Malik, S.K. 2004. Desiccation and freezing sensitivity during seed development in Jackfruit. Seed Sci. Technol. 32: 785-795.

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Chaudhury, R., Malik, S.K. and Engelmann, F. 2000. Application of cryopreservation technology for storage of recalcitrant and intermediate seed species. Abstr. International Conference on Science and Technology for Managing Plant Genetic Diversity in the 21st Century. Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, 12-16 June, 2000. p. 33. Drew, R.A. 2000.  Biotechnology and  conservation  of tropical  fruit species. Acta Horti.  523: 183-188. Ellis RH, Roberts EH. 1980. Improved equations for prediction of seed longevity. Ann. of Bot. 45: 13-30. Engelmann, F. 2000. Importance of cryopreservation for the conservation of plant genetic resources. p.  8-20.  In:  F.  Engelmann  and  H.  Takagi  (eds.),  Cryopreservation  of  Tropical  Plant Germplasm-Current Research Progress and Application, JIRCAS Tsukuba, Japan /IPGRI Rome, Italy. Fu,  J.R.  and  Liang, Y.H.  1997.  Cryopreservation  of  mango  excised  axis and  regeneration  of plantlets from buds and stem segments. Activity report 1997. IPGRI, Rome, Italy. Hong, T.D., Linington, S. and Ellis, R.H. 1998. Compendium of Information on Seed Storage Behaviour, Vols 1 and 2, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. Malik, S.K., Chaudhury, R. and Kalia, R.K. 2003. Seed storage behaviour and cryopreservation of tropical fruit species. p. 175-190. In: R. Chaudhury, R. Pandey, S.K. Malik and Bhag Mal (eds.),  In Vitro Conservation  and  Cryopreservation  of  Tropical  Fruit  Species.  IPGRI Office for South Asia, New Delhi, India/ NBPGR, New Delhi, India. Malik, S.K., Chaudhury, R. and Abraham, Z. 2005. Desiccation-freezing sensitivity and longevity in seeds of Garcinia indica, G. cambogia and G. xanthochymus. Seed Sci. Technol. 33: 723732. Malik,  S.K.,  Chaudhury,  R.,  Dhariwal, O.P.  and  Bhandari,  D.C.  2010.  Genetic Resources  of Tropical Underutilized Fruits in India, NBPGR, New Delhi. Pp 160. Pareek, O. P., Sharma, S. and Arora, R. K. 1998. Underutilized edible fruits and nuts: An inventory of genetic resources in their regions of diversity. IPGRI office for South Asia, International Plant Genetic Resources Institute, Rome, Italy. Pareek, O. P. and Suneel Sharma 2009.Underutilized Fruits and Nuts.Vol. 1.Diversity and Utilization & Fruits of Subtropical and Temperate Region.Aavishkar Publishers, Distributors, Jaipur, India. Pp. 366. Pareek, O. P. and Suneel Sharma 2009.Underutilized Fruits and Nuts.Vol. 2.Fruits of Tropical Region.Aavishkar Publishers, Distributors, Jaipur, India. Pp.342. Rao, V.R. 1998. Complementary Conservation Strategy. In: Tropical Fruits in Asia: Diversity, Maintenance, Conservation and Use (R.K.Arora and V. Ramanatha Rao eds.). Proceedings of the IPGRI-ICAR-UTFANET Regional Training Course on the Conservation and Use of Germplasm of Tropical Fruits in Asia held at Indian Institute of Horticultural Research, 18-31 May 1997, Bangalore, India. p. 142-151.

Nutraceutical Values of Horticultural Crops and Products, pp 75-80 © 2018, New India Publishing Agency, New Delhi, India Editors: Dhurendra Singh, P. N. Sivalingam, Pinaki Acharyya and  S.R. Meena

10 Vegetable-derived Nutraceuticals: Value Chain and Nutrition Security Suresh Walia, Ritu Sisodia and Manender Singh

Introduction While  Indian  agriculture  has  evolved  to  provide  food  to  our  ever  growing population,  nutritional  security  had  remained  a  distant  dream.  Vegetables,  an important component of a healthy diet, are rich source of nutraceuticals such as flavonoids,  carotenoids,  vitamins,  anthocyanins,  polyphenolics  etc.  Such constituents  provide  health  benefits  of  disease  prevention  through  antioxidant activity and reduced disease risks. Since perishable food commodities and light sensitive  nutraceuticals  have  a  specific  shelf  life,  these  run  the  risk  of  getting spoilt  beyond  a  specific  time.  Excessive  quantities  of  these  must  therefore,  be processed and converted into value added products with improved shelf life and nutrition value after fortification with nutraceuticals. Nutraceuticals are also referred to  by  different  terminologies  like  functional  foods,  fusion  foods,  dietary supplements, designer foods etc. Nutraceutical products include food supplements, dietary supplements, value-added food products, processed food commodities as well  as  non-food supplements  such  as  tablets,  soft  gels,  capsules  etc. A  survey related to nutraceutical rich vegetables has revealed that farmers are growing only the  conventional  vegetables  and  there  is  little  awareness  about  the  use  of nutraceutical rich vegetables. Vegetables  are  rich  sources  of  important  phytochemicals,  which  provide essential  nutrients  and  enhance  the  body’s  ability to  prevent  and  fight  disease. There  is  a  multitude  of  phytochemicals,  in  unique  combinations,  in  different vegetables,  and  each  functions  differently  in  the  body  as  anti-oxidant,  as  antiallergenic, as  anti-carcinogenic,  as  anti-inflammatory,  as  anti-viral,  and/or  antiproliferative.  Being of  natural  origin,  some  of  the  phytochemical  pigments  are increasingly sought after as food colorants. Some of the nutraceutical rich vegetable crops include red and black carrot, beet root, tomato, chilli, and broccoli.

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Carrot (Daucus carota L.) Vegetable carrot is available in red, yellow, purple, or even black colour. The variety of pigments contained in them performs a range of protective functions in the  human  body.  Many  of  the  pigments  serve  to  shield  plant  cells  during photosynthesis.  Red  carrots  derive  their  color  mainly from  lycopene,  a  type  of carotene  believed  to  guard  against  heart  disease  and  cancers.  Yellow  carrots accumulate xanthophylls, pigments similar to  -carotene that support good  eye health.  Purple  carrots  possess  an  entirely  different  class  of  pigments— anthocyanins—which act  as powerful antioxidants. Red carrots are thought to have originated in India and China in the eighteenth century.  They  contain  abundant  lycopene  in  addition  to  the  provitamin A, carotenoids,  -  and  -carotene.  The  redcarrot  qualifies  as  a  functional  food because, in addition to providing essential vitamin A, it may offer protection against chronic  disease  through  the  putative  benefits  of  lycopene.While  red  carrot  and tomato paste  contain  lycopene, -carotene concentration  is  very low  in  tomato paste compared with red carrots. Studies have revealed that lycopene in the red carrot is about 44% as bioavailable as that from tomato paste. Red carrots, therefore, provide an alternative to tomato paste as a good dietary source of lycopene and also provide bioavailability of -carotene. Black carrot is cultivated mainly in European countries and Central Asia. Its cultivation in India is also on the increase. Unlike red carrot which contains lycopenes and other carotenes, black carrot  is a rich source of anthocyanins. Anthocyanins have  many  different  functions  for  the  plant.  They  are  antioxidants,  protect  the plant against UV light, and play an important role in pollination and reproduction. In one  of  the  studies, the  colour of  texture-improved  canned  strawberries; was significantly stabilized using commercial concentrates from black carrots as the natural  colorant.  This  was  made  possible due  to  the  presence  of  storage  stable acylated anthocyanins. Microencapsulation of anthocyanin pigments of black carrot by spray drier has led to products with increased stability and half-life. Its natural red pigment  mainly contains  acylated and non-acylated  anthocyanins. They are temperature  resistant  water-soluble  strong  colors  and  have  been  used  to  color food  and  are  stable  in  pH  ) Total sugars (%) Acidity (%) SSC: acid ratio Ascorbic acid (mg/100ml) Total carotenoids (g/100ml) Flavanol (mg/100ml) Total flavanoids (mg/100ml) Total anthocyanins (mg/L) Total phenols (mg/100ml) Total antioxidant capacity [mM Trolox Equivalent (TE)/L]

Plain Rhododendron squash 45.00b 13.43c 44.47b 1.03a 43.66a 2.30b 787 46a 59.30a 476.0a 20.56a 2570.60a 19.67a

Blended Rhododendron Squash 45.00b 13.59b 44.63b 0.99a 45.45a 2.36b 776.20b 54.46b 429.26b 20.16b 4960.62b 19.46b

Locally Available Squash 49.00a 16.31a 47.14a 0.27b 175.25b 3.11a 675.54c 51.36c 398.6c 8.47c 4766.06c 12.93c

On the basis of sensory evaluation; however, ginger blended squash was adjudged best. The locally available scored the least for all the parameters. Heating of Rhododendron petals with water at 80 oC such as adopted in the present investigation suggests a potential alternative of conventional method of squash preparation, which involves boiling of equal amount of water, sugar and flower petals together till petals completely bleached. The improvised beverages (with or without supplementation with ginger juice) prepared in the present study have rendered some interesting results. The plain Rhododendron squash was found richer in various antioxidant components than other squashes; however, ginger blended Rhododendron squash registered better organoleptic properties with an appealing red colour and an acceptable content of bioactive compounds and a moderate antioxidant capacity. On the other hand, Rhododendron squash collected from market (control) was found to be poor both in antioxidant contents as well as organoleptic attributes, despite more use of flower petals, owing to prolonged boiling of Rhododendron petals with sugar and water. Three ready to serve beverages (RTSs) were also prepared employing myrica and rubus. One each using alone either myrica or rubus and one by mixing equal amount of myrica and rubus juices. The myrica RTS was found to be richest source of antioxidants followed by mixed RTS and rubus RTS. Likewise, upon sensory evaluation myrica RTS was adjudged best followed by rubus RTS.

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Washing, cleaning and sorting of kafal and hisalu fruits  Extraction of juice (@100 ml L-1 of finished product)  Preparation of sugar syrup followed by cooling  Mixing of juice with sugar syrup to make the final TSS 10° brix  Addition of citric acid for 0.3% acidity and sodium benzoate/SO2 (120/70 ppm)  Storage in bottles

2. Flow chart of RTS preparation Table 2: Quality attributes of different RTSs. Quality  attributes Soluble solid content (°Brix) Reducing sugars (%) Total sugars (%) Acidity  (%) SSC: acid ratio Ascorbic acid (mg/l00ml) Total carotenoids (mg/100ml) Flavanol (mg/100ml) Total flavanoids (mg/100 ml) Total anthocyanins (mg/lL) Total phenols (mg/100ml) Total antioxidant capacity [mM Trolox Equivalent (TE)/L]

Kafal RTS 10.0a 4.2c 9.7a 0.3a 33.3a 0.2c 29.7c 1B.6a 62.4a 1.55a 89a 4.95a

Hisalu RTS

Blended RTS

10.0a 4.7a 9.3c 0.29a 34.5b 2.1a 516.9a 10.Bc 40.2c 28.5c 1.47c

10.0a 4.5b 9.6b 0.3a 33.3a ,9Bb 297.5b 14.7b 52.6b 0.77b 54b 3.19b

Row values followed by the same letter are not significantly different (P