Effect of kitchen ash and that from oil palm inflorescences in the conservation of perishable products in Mbujimayi

Production of market garden crops play a major role in human nutrition by providing vitamins, amino acids, trace elements such as iron, zinc, etc. on the one hand and on the other hand they contribute significantly to the income of families in sub-saharan Africa. However, the great difficulty encountered by households in the tropical region in general and in particular in Mbujimayi, is the conservation of market garden crops for a long period of time and the losses recorded are around 40 – 50%, or even more. This is how a conservation test based on kitchen ash and that from oil palm inflorescences was carried out in the town of Mbujimayi in boxes of 1350 cm2 (45 cm long x 30 cm wide) during the period from August 10 to September 6, 2021, i.e. one (1) month and 4 days of storage. The treatments consisted of T0 (the control treatment), T1 (the cooking ash) and T2 (the ash of the oil palm inflorescences). Thus, for treatments T1 and T2, each room had received 4 glasses (one glass weighs approximately 70g) of kitchen ash and that of oil palm inflorescences. After experimentation, it appears that the kitchen ash preserved better (for at least 20 days under ambient conditions) the pepper, tomato and cucumber (Tables 1, 2 and 3) compared to the ash of the inflorescences of the palm and the witness.