Abstract
Local landraces of shallot from the Romagna region(Northern Italy) and North-western France, called ‘Scalogno di Romagna’ and ‘French grey’,respectively, have recently been evaluated for morphological,biochemical and molecular characters. These populations appeared very different from common shallots and onions, so were re-classified as Allium oschaninii O.Fedtsch., whereas almost no variability was observed within these types. Four ‘di Romagna’ and three French accessions were grown in Italy, and further evaluated for quality characters such asbulb colour and volatile oil content and composition. Colour was measured by means of a tristimulus colorimeter. Volatile oil was extracted by hydrodistillation and its components separated and identified by GC/MS. Colour parameters differentiated the‘di Romagna’ from the ‘French grey’accessions. Essential oil composition differed from what has been reported for most other Alliums, by a lower amount of1-propenyl- substituents. No individual oil component allowed a good differentiation of the two geographic origins.However, the French and ‘di Romagna’ accessions were perfectly separated by the discriminant analysis of oil composition.Minor 1-propenyl- components seemed more critical for discrimination. The shallot types examined seemed biochemically differentiatedfrom Allium cepa. Variation in the examined quality characters was detected both between the two provenances and among the accessions of common geographic origin.
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Filippo D'Antuono, L., Moretti, A. & Neri, R. Evaluation of ‘di Romagna’ and ‘Frenchgrey’ shallots for quality characters connected to bulb colourand volatile oil content and composition. Genetic Resources and Crop Evolution 49, 175–182 (2002). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1014786625804
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1014786625804