Control Of Post-Harvest Cocoyam (Clocasia Esculanta) Spoilage Using Bacillus Magaerium And Bryrophyllum Pinnatum

ABSTRACT

Cocoyam (Colocasia esculenta) of Araceace family is known in Nigerian languages as Ede (Ibo), Gwara (Hausa), Koko (Yoruba) and Ikpong (Efik). It is a perennial herbaceous crop grown and cultivated mainly for its edible corms and cornels. It is constituted into many different food forms for various culinary delights and also eaten boiled, roasted or pounded and sometimes mixed with other staples such as yam, cassava, plantain in many nutritious and readily digestible starch. Cocoyam is nutritiously superior to other roots and tubers in terms of digestible crude proteins and minerals such as ca, mg and p (Chukwu et al., 2008). Cocoyam also possesses the smallest starch grain size relative to other root crops and tubers (FAO, 2012). This makes cocoyam a suitable food for potentially allergic infants, persons with gastro intestinal disorder as well as diabetic patients (FAO, 2012). It is widely used as soup thickener which when added to soup fluid absorbs the fluid and the soup thickens. Cocoyam is usually pounded to a soft dough known as 'utara ede' which is eaten with different soup preparations in southeastern Nigeria (Bede et al., 2013).