Comparative Study of Physical Properties of Cashew Nuts from Three Main Production Areas in Côte d’Ivoire

Abstract

The aim of our study was to evaluate physical properties of cashew nuts from the three main production areas in Côte d’Ivoire namely Bondoukou, Dabakala and Mankono after 6 months of storage in identical conditions. Sample cashew nuts have been collected from farmers randomly selected in 20 localities far enough apart and also veritable purveyors of nuts. The physical traits of the raw cashew nuts and their different parts were evaluated by standard methods. As results, our data showed that despite the similar mass (in mean 6.23 g) of cashew nuts independently of the origin, the mass of the kernels nuts from Bondoukou (2.17 g) were significantly higher than those from Dabakala (1.90 g) and Mankono (1.81 g) respectively in contrast to the shell mass indicating the best kernels yield at Bondoukou. Nuts water content diminished slowly from nuts at Bondoukou (3.86%) but rapidly at Mankono (5.68%) after 6 months of storage. For the morphometric characteristics, our results revealed that the nuts from Bondoukou were statistically shorter but the kernels were thicker (15.1 ± 0.50 mm) versus and for Dabakala (11.4 ± 0.16 mm) and Mankono (11.2 ± 0.19 mm) respectively. There is a clear correlation between the arithmetic diameter of the kernels and their sphericity (r = 0.99). Concerning the technological properties, out-turn was average ranged from 44.09 to 46.69 with defective up to 18% at Dabakala. Taken together, our results suggested that the cashew nuts presented different physical properties according to each region of production in Côte d’Ivoire requiring appropriated agricultural practices.