New varieties

Since the local variety IAC used for attiéké production has to be replaced by a new variety, attiéké produced from varieties introduced from Nigeria were tested for cyanide degradation. Results for one of these new varieties (92/02327) are shown in fig.3. With this variety 92/02327 the complete transformation of linamarin to cyanohydrin and HCN does not take place during the fermentation.Therefor some linamarin is still present in the mash after fermentation, leading to remaining cyanides (linamarin) in the final product. Since it could be shown that microorganisms do not play an important role in the cyanide degradation, the activity of the enogenous enzyme linamarase seams to be important for the complete conversion of linamarin to cyanohydrin and HCN. The planed research work is to determine linamarase activity in different cassava varieties: to explain the high linamarin content in attiéké prepared from some of the new varieties to select cassava varieties for production of attiéké with low cyanide content