Sugar Content Estimation of Date (Phoenix dactylifern L.) Fruits in Tamr Stage

Abstract

Annual production of dates in the United Arab Emirates is about 250,000 tons which used to be consumed in tamr stage where fruit moisture content becomes less than 30%. Date sugar content is considered one of the most important fruit commercial characteristics where it is significant for both fresh consumption and fruit processing as well. In a previous research work Fadel et al. (2001) and Fadel et al. (2006) studied color properties of date fruits and introduced a novel computerbased method for date sugar content estimation. This method depends on calculating the intensities of the red, green, and blue components of fruit color via image processing algorithm. Color ingredients intensity was correlated to glucose, fructose and sucrose levels. In this paper, two date varieties were focused on in order to validate the concept. Lolo and Bomaan are among the most famous date varieties in the UAE. In order to enhance research credibility, fructose and glucose content were determined for each variety using the HPLC (AOAC 1990). Using the abovementioned concept, sugar content was estimated in 43 samples of each variety and compared with the chromatography results. The results showed that, for the two varieties, glucose and fructose might be estimated using this technique with a minimum accuracy of about 86%. This paper focuses on the validation of this technique to evaluate its practicability.