Mushtaque Jatoi

University of Zagreb · Department of Pomology

Goji berries are considered as the latest super food or fruit due to its excellent nutritive and medicinal properties and usually consumed and marketed as a dried or as a juice due to its short storage life and lack of information about its postharvest behavior. The current study was an attempt to prolong its storage life simply by using different...

Date palm is one of the main horticultural crops of the ancient and recent world and an important source of food. Geographical distribution between 24° and 34°N latitude is considered as the main biodiversity centers of date palm distribution. There are about 5000 date palm cultivars besides countless varietal strains throughout the world, but ever...

The postharvest aspect of goji berries has long been neglected by researchers in order to extend its storage life and possible marketing as fresh fruit. Since fresh goji berry availability is limited only to its cultivating region due to its short postharvest storage life and highly perishable nature, this further restricts interested consumers wor...

An efficient protocol for rapid and large scale In vitro propagation of some Pakistani cultivars of date palm has been established using inflorescence explants at Date Palm Research Institute (DPRI), Shah Abdul Latif University (SALU), Khairpur, Pakistan. Immature inflorescences of desired cultivars of date palm detached from mother palms followed...

Over the years, extrusion has been a multi-step thermal technique that has proven to be the most effective process to stabilize rice bran (RB). This study aimed to investigate the effects of extrusion treatment and temperature (15, 25, and 40 °C) on the storage stability, lipid oxidation, peroxidase, and peroxide values, free fatty acids, fatty aci...

Fresh rice bran is susceptible to rancidity during storage and transportation and needs a stabilization process to inactivate enzymes and retain maximum nutrients. Two stabilization methods, i.e., dry‐heat and extrusion, were applied to study the changes in nutritional composition, volatile compounds, and storage stability of rice bran under varied...

A comprehensive study was carried out on in vitro multiplication and rooting using the medium enriched with different plant growth regulators and acclimatization of pineapple cv. ‘Smooth Cayenne’ using different soil growing substrates. The significantly highest shoot buds (Avg. 16.7) were obtained on the medium comprising 2.0 mg L−1 BA (6-Benzylam...

The current study evaluated the structural, physicochemical, and rheological characteristics of flaxseed gum (FSG). Two commercially recognized xanthan gum (XG) and gum Arabic (GA) were used for comparison. FSG showed different monosaccharides composition from GA and XG. The average molecular weight of FSG was observed to be lower than XG and was c...

Rice bran is a nutrient-rich and resource-dense byproduct of rice milling. The primary cause of rice bran utilization limitation is oxidative deterioration and inadequate storage facilities. Improving stability to extend the shelf-life of rice bran has thus become an utmost necessity. This study aimed to stabilize raw fresh rice bran (RB) by using...

Sweet potatoes (SPs) are a versatile tuberous crop used as subsistence and cash crop in raw and processed forms. The major issue with SPs is post-harvest losses, which result in noticeable quality decline because of inappropriate handling, storage, delayed transit, and sales, as well as microbiological and enzymatic activity. Drying is an excellent...

Botrytis cinerea is a plant fungal pathogen causing the grey mold disease of rose ‎‎(Rosa indica L.). Finding new and alternative environment-friendly control strategies than ‎hazardous chemicals on different crop diseases is a crucial and healthy step to cope with ‎the current challenges of climate change. ‎ Therefore, this study aimed to evaluate...

Influence of different concentrations (0.5, 1.0, 2.0, and 3.0% w/v) and temperatures (4, 25, 50, and 75°C) on particle size distribution (PSD) and rheological and tribological characteristics of flaxseed gum (FSG) solutions was investigated. Besides, FSG dispersions (0.5, 1.0, and 2.0% w/v) were used as edible coating and their influence on the qua...

The influence of ultrasound (US) pretreatments combined with infrared (IRD) and hot-air (HAD) drying on drying kinetics, mathematical modeling, bioactive compounds (antioxidant activities, Vitamin C, phenolics, and flavonoid contents), qualitative properties (β-carotene, total carotenoids, color indexes, textural profile), enzyme inactivation, and...

The current study aims to optimize in vitro elongation and rooting protocol and successful acclimatization of two elite date palm cultivars of Pakistan. The differentiated repeated embryos (RE) and non-repeated embryos (NRE) of date palm cvs. Aseel and Dhakki were harvested and transferred on germination medium containing different combinations of...

Phoenix dactylifera cv. Dedhi is an excellent soft date palm cultivar of district Khairpur, Sindh-Pakistan with large size fruit, brittle texture and very low tannins at the Khalal stage. The population of this palm cultivar is currently threatened by pest and disease issues, a limited availability of offshoots and by the prevailing monoculture of...

Date paste is an intermediate food product from date palm fruit containing valuable nutrients having a great potential as sugar substitute or filler in various food formulations. The study aimed to investigate the physicochemical, rheological, tribological, structural, and thermal characteristics of date paste prepared from five cultivars of date p...

Micropropagation of date palm

This study is aimed at producing economical and high-quality phalsa diet squash (DSP) by partial or full replacement of sucrose with an equivalent sweetness from the safe artificial sweeteners, such as sucralose and saccharine. A zero-order, first-order, and second-order models were used to describe the kinetics degradation of vitamin C, toftal ant...

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a recently emerged pandemic caused by a novel virus known as severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). This disease is communicable and mainly affects the respiratory tract. The outbreak of this disease has greatly influenced human health and economic activities worldwide. The absence of an...

Four extraction techniques (that is, hot water extraction [HWE], alkaline–acidic extraction [AAE], ultrasound assisted extraction [UAE], and microwave assisted extraction [MAE]) were compared for flaxseed gum extraction and their influence on the yield, purity, structural characterization (monosaccharide composition, molecular weight distribution,...

Date palm counts among the oldest fruit crops of the world and is mainly cultivated for its highly nutritious fruits consumed as a staple food in many countries, especially in the Gulf region. Dates are enriched with numerous therapeutic bioactives and functional compounds such as phenolics, flavonols, carotenoids, minerals, and vitamins that not o...

The study aimed to determine the effect of photoselective nets on productivity, pre and post-harvest quality of 'Cripps Pink’ apples. The apples were raised as slender spindles with a spacing of 3.4 m × 1.3 m. The experiment consisted of the trees covered after petal fall with red, yellow, and white photoselective nets (AGRITECH S.r.l., Eboly, Ital...

Flaxseed contains valuable nutritional composition with functional and bioactive properties. These characteristics make flaxseed an attractive source of functional ingredient for the preparation of foodstuffs. An extensive comparative study was conducted using raw and defatted flaxseed flours (DFF), investigating their functional properties, antiox...

The influence of ultrasonic frequency (20 kHz) and glucose pretreatments either alone or in combination on the drying of sweet potato slices (3 mm) using a hot-air dryer at 60 °C was tested to study the kinetics modeling, phytochemicals, antioxidant activities, and functional and textural changes of the final dried product. The results indicated th...

The present study was conducted with aim to test the effect of red photo-selective nets (Agritech S.r.l., Eboly, Italy) on 'Granny Smith' apple postharvest quality. The fruits have been harvested on optimal harvest date from orchard near city of Zadar where red photo-selective nets were used. Afterwards fruits were stored in regular air storage at...

In the current study, deproteinization rate (DPR) and carbohydrate loss ratio (CLR) in flaxseed gum (FSG) were compared as indexes by using four different deproteinized methods i.e. sodium chloride (NaCl), trichloroacetic acid (TCA), hydrochloric acid (HCl) and calcium chloride (CaCl2). In addition, the effect of deproteinization on physicochemical...

Variation in plant traits is considered as drivers of species evolution and of a greatest importance to plant breeders. The selection of the exotic wheat cultivars for high yield and their resistance to rust disease is of prime importance nowadays, which in result reduces the environmental impact and the total cost of lethal fungicides. Present stu...

Variation in plant traits is considered as drivers of species evolution and of a greatest importance to plant breeders. The selection of the exotic wheat cultivars for high yield and their resistance to rust disease is of prime importance nowadays, which in result reduces the environmental impact and the total cost of lethal fungicides. Present stu...

Date palm is an important fruit crop and member of palm family, reported with varied ploidy levels, i.e., 14 (2n = 28) to 18 (2n = 36) pairs of chromosomes and genomic size due to the limited work done on its cytological aspect. The amount of nuclear DNA content is extremely important to understand the hereditary constituent of any species. Hence,...

Flaxseed gum (FSG) is a heteropolysaccharide consist of neutral and acidic components that makes up approximately 8% of seed mass. FSG was extracted from mixture of brown and golden varieties of flaxseeds by hot water extraction method. The molecular weight distribution, monosaccharide analysis, chemical composition, and surface morphology of FSG w...

The effect of ultrasonic pretreatment and combined ultrasonic-osmotic dehydration using different pretreatment times (10, 20, 30, and 45 min) at 60°C was investigated. The aim of the present work was to shorten the total drying time and to improve the quality of sweet potato slices. The results showed that the moisture effective diffusivity increas...

The drying of sweet potatoes not only helps to prolong its storage life but the dried form reportedly enriched with high bioactive compounds than regular sweet potatoes. The study aims to investigate the influence of dual-frequency ultrasound pretreatments (40 and 60 kHz) at two different hot air drying temperatures (70 °C and 80 °C) on quality of...

Fruit thinning in apple crop plays a critical role to achieve marketable king size fruits with better fruit quality apples. Th e thinning experiments were conducted using naphthaleneacetic acid (NAA) at diff erent concentrations (0, 10, 15 and 20 μl·l-1) applied at three timings [full bloom (FBT), fruit (FT) and the combination of both (FBT + FT)]...

Immature inflorescences and shoot tip explants were used to propagate cv. Dhakki of date palm, a high value cultivar with limited distribution in Pakistan. The inflorescence explants found with less browning and mortality issues with higher callus (80.22%) and embryo formation (69.91%), and average shoot formation (81.22%) than shoot tip explants....

Background and Purpose: The current study aims to evaluate the effect of the fruit size of service tree (Sorbus domestica L.) on physio-morphological properties of seeds and the seed germination process. Materials and Methods: The fruit samples varying in size and divided on the basis of weight into small (5-10 g), medium (11-15 g) and large (16-20...

The quality of fruits is depending on the pre & postharvest management of any fruit crop including berries which are most sensitive and delicate type of fruit crops. The management of the orchards or any agricultural filed is labor intensive and slow process with huge production cost. With the recent advancement in agricultural technology several m...

Four anti-hail and anti-insect nets (red, white and yellow anti-hail and Stop Drosophila Normal) were used on apple cv. ‘Braeburn’ grown in northern Croatia in order to evaluate their effect on fruit colouration that was measured with the colorimeter (expressed as: L* – lightness, a* – yellow/blue b* – green/red) on two sides of fruit (“green” side...

Three concentrations of NAA (0, 10, 15 and 20 μl·l-1) were studied at three application timings (flower, fruit and the combination of each other) in order to evaluate the thinning effect on physico-chemical attributes of apple cv. Braeburn. NAA concentration was more significant factor than timing in terms of fruit production. The number and yield...

Kakvoća voća ovisi o postupcima prije i poslije berbe, što je naročito izraženo kod bobičastog i jagodičastog voća, koje se ubraja u skupinu voćnih vrsta koje su najosjetljivije na mehanička oštećenja. Uzgoj voća je radno intenzivan i spor proces s visokim troškovima proizvodnje. Uz nedavni napredak u poljoprivrednoj tehnologiji razvijeni su mehani...

A comparative study regarding standard fruit quality measurements (fruit mass, firmness, soluble solids concentration, starch conversion rate and Streif index) and acoustic properties (resonant frequency, peak width, resonant frequency/peak width ratio and stiffness) were conducted in ‘Gloster' apples during two seasons. The findings obtained indic...

The eff ect of red photoselective net on yield per tree (g), yield effi ciency (g·cm-2) leaf surface (cm2), fruit diameter (mm), fruit mass (g), fruit firmness (kg·cm-2) and soluble solids concentration (SSC) (%Brix) on young peach (‘Sugar Time’) and nectarine (‘Big Bang’) trees was studied. No significant differences were recorded for yield, yield...

The main goal of this study was to evaluate three black elder (Sambucus nigra L.) genotypes (“Prigorje”, “Korčula”, “Zagreb”) and compare them with cv. Haschberg as standard cultivar. Diameter of inflorescences, cluster mass, berry/stem mass ratio, mass of 10 berries and SSC were higher in season 2014 than in season 2015, while length of one-year-o...

A research was conducted on the effect of heat treatments on the heating and cooling of the ‘Idared’ apple fruit. The heat treatment was performed as hot water dip (HWD), where fruit were dipped into water at 50 °C, for two, four and six minutes (HWD 50 °C 2’, HWD 50 °C 4’ and HWD 50 °C 6’, respectively). The aim of the study was to determine the e...

A comparative study regarding standard fruit quality measurements (fruit mass, fi rmness, soluble solids concentration, starch conversion rate and Streif index) and acoustic properties (resonant frequency, peak width, resonant frequency/peak width ratio and stiff ness) were conducted in ‘Gloster' apples during two seasons. Th e fi ndings obtained i...

Date Palm (Phoenix dactylifera L.) infected with sudden decline disease problem caused by Fusarium solani is considered as one of the most severe problem in Khairpur, Sindh, Pakistan. F. solani are thought to be a causative organism for this epidemiological problem. Six fungicides were tested such as Bavistin D.F, Topsin-M, Alliette, Ridomil gold,...

The date palm (Phoenix dactylifera L.) is considered as one of the most important horticultural crop of the world and holds a very significant position in the agricultural horizon of district Khairpur, Sindh, Pakistan. The sudden decline disease of date palm is one of the major problems of the region and has destroyed hundreds of orchards in disper...

Date palm is a dioecious, perennial monocot plant species of the Arecaceae family cultivated in 56 countries including European and American countries. The success of date palm micropropagation is strongly linked to the in vitro root quality. The identical shoots of 8-10 cm long of three different varieties (vars.) were cultured in rooting experime...

Pakistan has remarkable position in dates production and export in the world and has very rich date palm varietal structure. Date palm is traditionally propagated by vegetative means because of seeds heterozygosity. Work on propagation of date palm through tissue culture is being done since long back using various explants and techniques. The Date...

Pakistan is rated among the top dates producing countries. The ripening and harvesting time of var. Aseel which is the predominant variety of district Khairpur is often coincides with Monsoon rains that deteriorating most of the crop either the fruit while on tree or on mats for sun drying. Due to this fear growers harvested the fruit at khalal sta...

Date palms of 10 year old Ajwa, Safawi and Ruthana varieties from Al-Madina, Saudi Arabia were evaluated under the agro-climatic conditions of Khairpur, Sindh, Pakistan throughout the growing seasons from 2009 to 2011. The results obtained indicated better fruit quality similar to those fruits obtained from the original place of origin. The palms o...

The success of date palm micropropagation is strongly linked to the in vitro roots quality. The identical shoots of 8-10 cm long of three different varieties (vars.), i.e. Gajar, Kashoo wari and Gulistan were cultured in rooting experiment to study the combined impact of genotype, sucrose concentration, activated charcoal (AC) level, basal salts (M...

Dates are major horticultural crop in Middle East region. It is the major fruit crop of arid deserts, in tropical and subtropical areas of the world including Gulf Cooperation Council of Northern Africa and Southern Asia. In Pakistan date palm are grown in four provinces. The area under cultivation of date palm is 98.7 thousand hectares with total...

Khairpur is the biodiversity center of date palm in Pakistan. The date palm orchards are suffering from a sudden decline disease (SDD) problem caused by a soil born fungus Fusarium solani, which is threatening date palm industry in this region. The efficacy of six different fungicides was tested against Fusarium solani under In vitro and In vivo co...