Physical Attributes and Modelling of Trans- Himalayan Seabuckthorn Berries

Abstract

Seabuckthorn is a highly perishable fruit found in trans-Himalayan region and North-Eastern part of India. It has enormous nutritional and medicinal properties. Physical attributes of fruits play an important role in the design of machines to meet various harvest and post harvest operations. In the present study properties like dimensions, true density, bulk density, sphericity, porosity and angle of repose were measured and correlated with the mass of the fruit. In addition linear, polynomial, quadratic, logarithmic and exponential models were used for mass and surface area. The length, diameter, thousand berry weight, geometric mean diameter, arithmetic mean diameter, surface area, aspect ratio, angle of repose, sphericity, porosity, true density, bulk density, moisture content were found in the range of 6.5-7.5, 4.74-6.28, 362.67-910.14, 5.49-6.99, 6.17-6.24, 76.87-154.76, 72.81-83.73, 3.59-6.82, 65.84-90.47, 17.05-60.07, 647.19-1399.24, 453.81-725.88, 84.53-87.34 respectively. Polynomial model was suited to be best for mass with length and diameter. Polynomial model between surface area and geometric mean diameter gave highest R2 of 0.981.