Plum (Prunus domestica) is a seasonal nutraceutical fruit rich in many functional food nutrients such as vitamin C, antioxidants, total phenolic content, and minerals. Recently, researchers have focused on improvised technologies for the retention of bioactive compounds during the processing of perishable fruits; plum is one of these fruits. This study looked at how the percentage of moisture content and percentage of acidity were affected by conventional drying and osmotic dehydration. Total phenolic content (mg GA/100 g of plum), total anthocyanin content (mg/100 g), and vitamin C (mg/100 g) Conventional drying of fruit was carried out at 80.0 ℃ for 5 h. At various temperatures (45.0 ℃, 50.0 ℃, and 55.0 ℃) and hypertonic solution concentrations (65.0 B, 70.0 B, and 75.0 B), the whole fruit was osmotically dehydrated. It was observed that the osmotically treated fruit retains more nutrients than conventionally dried fruit. The total phenolic content of fruit significantly increased with the increase in process temperature. However, vitamin C and total anthocyanin content of the fruit decreased significantly with process temperature, and hypertonic solution concentration was observed. Hence, it was concluded that osmodehydration could be employed for nutrient retention in plum fruit over conventional drying. This process needs to be further refined, improvised, and optimised for plum processing.

Land suitability analysis using geographic information systems (GIS) is one of the most widely used method today. In this type of studies, GIS and geo-spatial statistical tools are used to evaluate land units and present the results in suitability maps. The present work aims to characterize the suitability of soils in the province of Catamarca for pecan nut production according to the variables: rockiness, salinity, risk of water-logging, depth, texture and drainage described in the Soil Map of Argentina at a scale of 1:500,000 published by the National Institute of Agricultural Technology. A classification of the suitability of the soil cartographic units was made according to crop requirements, applying the methodology proposed by FAO. The standardization of variables made by omega score and the calculation of the spatial classification score were carried out as a result of the synthesis of the spatial distribution of soil suitability. The applied methodology allowed obtaining the soil suitability map resulting in a total of 60,662 km² suitable for pecan nut production, which accounts for 59.8% of the total area of the province.