Evaluation of agronomic, bioactive and element status of promising cherry laurel (P. laurocerasus) accessions in the genetic collection by multivariate analysis

Abstract

Cherry laurel (Prunus lauroceasus L.) is naturally grown in The Eastern Black Sea Region. It is one of the very valuable fruit types that have not been cultured yet. The people of the region have been consuming it as a health fruit for many years. it is a nice looking sourness-sweet fruit. In this study, the fruit characteristics of the 15-years-old promising P. lauoraceasus genotypes in the genetic collection orchard of the 'Black Sea Agricultural Research Institute' and the relationships between the traits were determined by multivariate tests. All the characters studied showed significant variation. Among these characters, the yield that was not previously reported from a standard orchard varied between 9.79 - 34.19 kg/tree, and the yield per decare of 61K04 genotype was calculated over 1.5 tons. While macro- and micro-elements were generally found to be highly correlated with each other (except Fe, Cu moderate), as an interesting result, DPPH (antioxidant activity) was found to be negatively correlated with TPC (total phenolic content). Another striking relationship, taste and berry homogeneity were positively correlated with berry weight. Mantel test results revealed that the features did not change statistically with geographic distance. In the two-way cluster analysis, provinces were divided into 3 different groups, and Bolu became prominent with its high element content and Samsun with its agronomic features. As a result Principal Component Analysis (PCA), it was shown that the most important features in defining the characteristics of cherry laurel fruits are element contents (except Mg and Fe), yield, berry and seed weight, TPC, and DPPH. As a result of the study, it was observed that the nutrient content of cherry laurel was quite rich and some of the genotypes reached quite satisfactory yield values, and cultivation of this fruit could be commercially important as well as healthy. In addition, it has been shown that the use of multivariate tests in breeding studies is very useful and effective in evaluating individuals and traits.