Morphological characterization and quality assessment of cashew (Anacardium occidentale L.) nuts from 53 accessions of Burkina Faso.

Cashew (Anacardium occidentale L.) is important in the world market, including Burkina Faso. This stimulated the implementation of a breeding program on species, targeting on high profitability cashew accessions of food-grade and economical interest. In the present study, nuts from a core of 53 cashew accessions from western Burkina Faso were physico-chemically characterized for the development of more profitable and competitive varieties on the international market. Morphological characteristics including length, width, thickness, weight, kernel yield and technological quality, mainly graining and kernel output ratio (KOR), respectively were evaluated by standard methods. Results showed that the nuts had a mean weight of 6.71 ± 1.13 g, with length, width and thickness of 3.15 ± 0.30 cm, 2.54 ± 0.22 cm, 1.75 ± 0.23 cm, respectively. Samples were mostly composed of large nuts with 86.79% of the nuts of the cashew accessions having a kernel weight below 180 nuts/kg. More than...