Characterisation of starches separated from sorghum cultivars grown in India

Starches from 15 Indian sorghum cultivars were separated and evaluated for physicochemical, morphological, thermal, retrogradation, pasting and textural properties. The morphological characterisation revealed the presence of irregular-polyhedral as well as spherical shaped granules. A wide variation in amylose content ranging from 11.2% to 28.5% was observed. Thermal, retrogradation, pasting and textural characteristics also showed significant differences amongst all the starch cultivars. Principal component analysis was carried out to extract five principal components that could explain 75% of the total variance. The first two principal components PC1 (To, Tp, Tc and ΔHgel) and PC2 (amylose content, range of gelatinisation, PHI and pasting and textural properties) could explain a cumulative variance of 44%, indicating the importance of amylose, thermal and textural properties on the sorghum starch functionality.