Ginger (Zingiber officinale Roscoe) is an important culinary and medicinal spice but is rarely cultivated due to the unavailability of seeds. Given the difficulties in adapting to plantlets produced in natural environments, it is important to analyze the survival conditions of ginger plantlets. For this reason, we varied the incubation temperature and humidity as well as the substrate during the weaning phase. Then, we varied the nutrients contained in the watering solution during the hardening phase. The statistical analysis showed that physical factors and substrates significantly influenced (p < 0.0001) plantlet survival. Nutrient solutions significantly influenced the phylogenesis, rhizogenesis, and height growth of the plantlets. The suitable physical factors for good development of plantlets are a temperature of 26.54˚C and a humidity of 96.16%. The 1C2T2TC substrate (1 Compost + 2 Soil + 2 Coconut Peat) had a significant survival rate of approximately 92.5%. During hardening, the Plantzym solution promoted good growth in terms of plantlet height (0.6 cm) and good development of roots (30 roots) and leaves (03 leaves). This work will make it possible to develop a technical seed production sheet for better development of ginger cultivation in Benin.
This study is an extension of the previous work done with ARS-680 Environmental Chamber. Drying is a complex operation that demands much energy and time. Drying is essentially important for preservation of ginger rhizome. Drying of ginger was modeled, and then the effective diffusion coefficient and activation energy were determined. For this purpose, the experiments were done at six levels of varied temperatures: 10°C, 20°C, 30°C, 40°C, 50°C and 60°C. The values of effective diffusion coefficients obtained in this work for the variously treated ginger rhizomes closely agreed with the average effective diffusion coefficients of other notable authors who determined the drying kinetics and convective heat transfer coefficients of ginger slices.
Austin Ikechukwu GbasouzorSam Nna OmenyiSabuj MallikJude E. Njoku
