The effects of planting time on fatty acids and tocopherols in chickpea

Abstract

In Turkey, as an important producer, chickpea is generally planted in March and April during spring. However, spring plantings have the disadvantage of unstable yield and quality from year to year due to irregularity in spring precipitation. In this research, fatty acids and tocopherol contents in different chickpea genotypes were investigated for consecutive 2 years with both autumn and spring plantings. Tocopherol analyses were carried out by using a high performance liquid chromatography. Gamma tocopherol was the major component of total tocopherol content and it ranged between 15.34 and 42.09 mg kg⁻¹. Alpha tocopherol content ranged between 4.55 and 10.69 mg kg⁻¹. Depending on planting time, the values of tocopherol components changed significantly. The mean values for alpha tocopherol were 6.77 mg kg⁻¹ for autumn and 7.55 mg kg⁻¹ for spring plantings; while the mean values for gamma tocopherol were 33.32 mg kg⁻¹ for autumn and 22.50 mg kg⁻¹ for spring plantings, respectively. Fatty acids, quantified using a gas chromatography, indicated that differences among the genotypes were significant. The values for autumn planting were generally higher than those of spring planting. The values of major fatty acids changed between 18.57 and 35.23% for oleic acid and 47.15 and 63.44% for linoleic acid. According to planting time the mean values for oleic acid changed between 21.23 and 30.52% and for linoleic acid between 51.77 and 60.79%.