Khirni – fruit with high nutrition value

Khirni – fruit with high nutrition value

Khirni fruits are very sweet and liked by people.  Khirni is therefore cultivated on a small scale in gardens] especially near big cities where there exists a good market for the fruits.  In fact khirni fruits are considered to be a seasonal delicacy and sell at fairly high price in Indian metros. At maturity the brown scurf on the fruit surface is replaced by yellowish corky brown colour. The absence of green tissues and lateÛ also indicates maturity. The fruits are picked by hand or harvested with special harvester which has a round ring with a net bag fixed on a long pole. Seeds of khirni contain 25% oil which is considered demulcent and emollient.

 Khirni is a socio & economically important fruit and nut species of tribal population of tropical deciduous forests of western and central India- Survey and collection missions were undertaken to study the extent of variability and socio & economic importance of Khirni germplasm in diversity rich areas of Rajasthan,Gujarat] Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra. Bark, fresh fruits and extracted seeds have high nutritional and medicinal value. Khirni is a small to medium sized tree evergreen tree, 3 & 4 m high with a spreading crown and straight massive bole. 

It is very commonly found growing wild in the dry evergreen forests in Central India and the Deccan Peninsula of India- Khirni bears small 1 & 2 seeded fruits which turn yellow at maturity.  The fruits are 1.1-5 cm and round to ellipsoid in shape.  Khirni has a strong and dense timber that is put to several uses in villages.  Leaves are used as a fodder for cattle. Khirni tree also yields a gum. The bark contains 10 per cent tannins and can be used for tanning purposes.  It is also used in fevers and as a general tonic.  The bark also retards the fermentation the fermentation of toddy a wine made from palm sap in Indian villages. 

Khirni is used as a rootstock for sapota in India. One of the best of these fruits is also one of the least known. This is khirni or rayan golden yellow berries that come for only a very short time in May just when the real heat of summer starts. It is often sold] in striking contrast, alongside dark purple jamun and many people associate it with a similar astringency. It has a touch of it but this disappears if you let it to ripen almost to the point when rot sets in. 

This is one reason perhaps that the British sometimes called the khirni tree the Indian medlar since medlars are a European fruit that famously must be almost rotten to be edible, but Indian medlar is now applied to the bakul, Mimusops elengi which also has an edible] but uninteresting fruit. "underutilized fruits" that are hundred times more nutritious than the popular fruits in terms of their vitamin C, cartenoids and antioxidants. People prefer to have fruits with good taste since wild fruits have high levels of the unpleasant tasting tannins and glycosides. Indigenous fruits are neither large nor fleshy and contain lots of seeds. The fruits are highly perishable and difficult to store in the fresh form. They have known medicinal and therapeutic properties and are used by the local people to cure various diseases.