RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN DEBRANNING, ASH DISTRIBUTION PATTERN, AND CONDUCTIVITY IN MAIZE

Abstract

Two Indian flint maize cultivars were evaluated for ash distribution pattern using a McGill No. 2 miller. Both the maize cultivars was debranned for 20, 40, 60, 80, 100 and 120 s and determined for percent bran removed, ash content and conductivity. The regression equations were computed to determine the relationship between bran removed versus debranning duration, ash content versus debranning duration and ash content versus conductivity. The maize cultivars differ significantly with respect to percentage loss of ash content at various debranning stages. Parbhat cultivars showed lower loss of ash as compared to Megha under similar stages of debranning. The quadratic regression model for the relationship between ash content and conductivity of solubles extracted from maize grain debranned for different intervals had a high coefficient of determination (0.959 0.979). This indicated that the computed models can be used to determine percent bran removed from debranning duration and ash content from the conductivity.

Keywords:

• Maize
• Debranning
• Ash content
• Conductivity

Acknowledgments