Nutritional, anti-nutritional and morphological characterization of wild edible species of Solanum found in North East India

Abstract

Abstract The outcome of this study shows that S. species are considerably variate in nutritional, anti-nutritional and morphological characters. Maximum plant height (161.16±5.67 cm) and number of flowers per inflorescence (12.49±1.55) was obtained from S. torvum while S. nigrumattained minimum fruit length (6.08±0.43 mm) and girth (6.48±0.55 mm). Among all the berries, S. macrocarpon has wider girth than length. So, it perceived maximal fruit girth (73.65±0.65 mm) and lowest number of flowers per inflorescence (2.04±0.43). Being a short period plant, S. nigrum also recorded least number of days to first flowering (19.94±3.63) and no. of days taken for fruit development (31.27±2.99). Regarding nutritional composition, highest amount of total carbohydrates (47.44±1.75 mg/g) and starch (8.76±0.16 mg/g) was recorded in S. macrocarpon whereas it has least value of cellulose (0.75±0.007 mg/g). S. ferox achieved maximal amount of total sugar (7.33±0.78 mg/g) and reducing sugar (3.86±0.40 mg/g). Likewise, S. spirale recorded minimum amount of total sugar (2.37±0.12 mg/g) and reducing sugar (0.23±0.03 mg/g) while S. torvum obtained highest quantity of cellulose (2.04±0.08 mg/g). Total soluble protein was observed from S. villosum with an amount of 1.54±0.03 mg/g whereas S. gilo (white) obtained lowest 0.74±0.03 mg/g soluble protein. As for anti-nutritional highest quantity of phytic acid was recorded in S. spirale (5.34 ±0.18 mg/g) while least amount was obtained from S. ferox(0.72 ±0.01 mg/g). However, maximal amount of cyanogen i.e., 54.24 ±0.59 µg/g was attained from S. violaceum(spineless) and lowest quantity of cyanogen at 12.72 ±0.56 µg/g was recorded in S. gilo (green).