Ethno-ecological assessments and nutritional analyses of Vitis vinifera L. grown in Bajaur, Pakistan

Abstract

Grape (Vitis vinifera L.) is a common fruit throughout the globe. It belongs to the family of Vitaceae. It is mainly distributed in China, France, Italy, Spain, Turkey, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Argentina, Chile, Australia and South Africa. Grapes are commercially important throughout the world. The current study was carried out to evaluate the ethnoecological importance of grapes via questionnaire survey, grown by the indigenous communities of the district Bajaur at border region with Afghanistan. The ethno-ecological data was gathered and analyzed with hypothesis-testing, that to assess the morphological parameters of grapevine. Different varieties were cultivated in Bajaur “Fruit Nursery Farm of Anayat Kala”. Fruits nutritional composition was determined through titration and atomic absorption spectrometry techniques and both the data sets were analyzed through fisher’s analysis of variance (ANOVA) using Newman-K euls test and Principle Component Analysis (PCA) using XLSTAT software version 2.3. Preliminary ethno-ecological results showed that the local people of the study area cultivate grapes in their home gardens with an estimated production of 1-20 Kg per plant. All the morphological parameters such as survival percentage, number of leaves, number of nodes, plant height, internode length and leaf area (p-value < 0.0001), petiole length (p < 0.002), internode width (p < 0.005) were found statistically significant except days to sprouting with p-value= (0.322). Various Nutritional properties of different grape cultivars such as moisture content (M_C), pH, electrical conductivity (EC), Total Soluble Solids (TSS), Vitamin-C (Vit-C) Reducing sugar (R_S), Non-reducing sugar (N_RS), Sodium (Na), Iron (Fe), Copper (Cu), Calcium (Ca), Magnesium (Mg) and Manganese (Mn) results also show high significance (p-value < 0.0001). In our terms of variation and quality findings show that the soil and climatic conditions of the study area have great potential and suitability for grapes production, therefore cultivation of different varieties of grapes should be encouraged and recommended in the region of Bajaur in particular and Tribal belt in general.