Effects of plantation areas, planting months, harvesting months and numbers of crop year of raw materials on krachai-dam (Kaempferia parviflora Wall. ex Baker) honey wines’ qualities

Abstract

The effects of plantation areas, planting months, harvesting months and numbers of crop year ofKrachai-Dam (Kaempferia parviflora Wall. ex Baker) rhizomes used as raw materials on the physical, chemical(total phenolic contents) and pharmaceutical (antioxidative activity) qualities of Krachai-Dam honey wines werestudied. The raw materials were ‘Phurua-10 (Rom-Klao) cultivar, which were grown in 4 plantation areas:Nakhonphanom (150 m msl), Phrae (200 m msl), Phurua (950 m msl) and Maechonluang (1,350 m msl); 4 plantingmonths: May, June, July and August 2005; 5 maturing months: 6, 7, 8, 9 and 10 months after growing; and 2 cropcycles: 1-year crop (rhizomes grown since May 2005 were harvested in January 2006) and 2-year crop (rhizomesgrown since May 2004 were harvested in January 2006). This research was studied from November 2005 to March2007 at the Queen Sirikit Sericulture Centre (Chiang Mai), and the Department of Food Science and Technology,Faculty of Agro-industry, Chiang Mai University, Chiang Mai. The results revealed that the environmental factorsstudied, which were altitudes of plantation area, planting months and harvesting months of raw materials, hadinfluenced on the physical and chemical qualities of honey wines, especially, the total phenolic contents (TP) andantioxidant indexes (AOI). These values of wines increased, as the elevation level of plantation area was higher; butdecreased, as the planting months were delayed or harvesting months were earlier or later than 7-9 months aftergrowing. However, crop cycles had no influenced on wines’ qualities. It was found that the treatment combinationof Maechonluang area (1,350 m msl) with a planting month at May, a harvesting month in January and 1-yearcrop gave the highest AOI and TP (1.44 and 389.50 mg GAE/100 ml respectively). Moreover, the Krachai-Damhoney wines rendered a higher TP but a lower AOI when compared with the red wines from grapes. Therefore, thisresearch could be used as a guideline to standardize the raw materials for producing Krachai-Dam honey wines.