Influence of Blanching Duration on the Hullability of Adikpo and Lafia Varieties of Grondnut Kernels (Arachis Hypogea)

An investigation was carried out to determine the compressive force, strain energy, elastic modulus and seed-coat adhesion as a function of blanching time for the kernels Adikpo (samnut19) and Lafia (samnut10) varieties of groundnut. Compression tests were performed at a loading rate of 2mm/min for blanching time intervals of 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 and 10 minutes. Further experiments were conducted to ascertain the effect of blanching time on testa-kernel adhesion using a mixer at a speed of 4rev/min for each time interval. Results show that compressive force, strain energy and elastic modulus of both varieties decreased as blanching time increased. Contrarily, deformation for both varieties increased linearly with increase in blanching time. Also, an optimum blanching duration of 7 and 5 minutes were achieved for the effective hulling of the adikpo (samnut19) and lafia (samnut10) varieties respectively.