Determination of dry matter content of wet fufu mash using handheld NIRS. High-throughput phenotyping protocols (HTPP), WP3

'Fufu', a fermented wet paste food product from cassava is a good source of dietary energy and is one of the widely consumed food in Nigeria and other West African countries. A rapid and accurate method for determining dry matter (DM) content of fufu mash will be valuable for further work to be done on fufu. Portable/handheld NIRS are flexible tools for fast and unbiased analyses of constituents with minimal preparation. This SOP discusses the procedural steps involved in the determining the dry matter (DM) content of wet fufu mash samples with the use of portable/handheld NIRS device. Three different quartz cups were filled with fufu mashes (of about 8-10g) and covered with a white cover material. They were placed against the window of the portable/handheld NIRS device and spectra captured on them. To ensure repeatability of the procedure, nine (9) spectra were captured on one of the samples (TME 419) which gave an overall root mean square of 38452. Random comparison of the sample's spectra gave 1, 2 = 32182, 1, 3 = 21581, 1, 4 = 35437, 1, 5 = 19887, 1, 6 = 35645, 1, 7 = 14899, 1, 8 = 32498, and 1, 9 = 20162. The values from the compared spectra were seen to be lower than the overall root mean square (RMS) value, which showed good repeatability.