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From Genotype to Apricot Fruit Quality: The Antioxidant Properties Contribution

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Abstract

Apricot fruit (Prunus armeniaca L.) quality strictly relates to the eating quality of fresh produce. Since consumers are more and more interested in healthy food, and apricot germplasm shows a wide choice of new selections and cultivars, apricot nutraceutical properties are under evaluation in order to select outstanding genotypes, which may link breeding and marketing. In the present study, 18 apricot genotypes of the Italian and international germplasm were evaluated over three years according to pomological, total antioxidant and total phenols attributes using principal component and hierarchical cluster analyses. The antioxidant capacity ranged from 1.24 to 11.47 μmolTE gFW−1 and total phenols from 0.22 to 1.58 mgGAE gFW−1. Four outstanding genotypes stood out as healthy food for fresh consumption which may also be introduced in breeding programs to produce new cultivars with improved nutraceutical values in addition to fruit qualitative attributes.

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Acknowledgement

Thanks to Philip R. Schiff from the School of Chemistry, Tel Aviv University, for the English revision of the text.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna di Studi Universitari e di Perfezionamento, Piazza Martiri della Libertà, 33, 56127, Pisa, Italy

    Annamaria Leccese & Susanna Bartolini

  2. Dipartimento di Coltivazione e Difesa delle Specie Legnose ‘G. Scaramuzzi’, Facoltà di Agraria, Pisa University, Via del Borghetto 80, Pisa, Italy

    Raffaella Viti

Authors
  1. Annamaria Leccese
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  2. Susanna Bartolini
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  3. Raffaella Viti
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Correspondence to Annamaria Leccese.

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Leccese, A., Bartolini, S. & Viti, R. From Genotype to Apricot Fruit Quality: The Antioxidant Properties Contribution. Plant Foods Hum Nutr 67, 317–325 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11130-012-0314-0

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