Date wastes, one of the abundantly available carbohydrate agricultural wastes in the South and East of the Mediterranean, were served as a novel substrate for the production of glutamic acid, the precursor of monosodium glutamate. A fractional factorial design was used to investigate the effects of variables, namely biotin content, urea content and agitation speed on the response glutamic acid production. A second order polynomial model was used to predict the response. Agitation speed was found to significantly influence the glutamic acid production. The highest glutamic acid production was recorded at agitation speed ranging 240- 250 rpm and urea concentration of 2.8-3 g/l. The study showed that the wastes from dates could serve as a low-cost substrate for glutamic acid production.
