Evaluation of Nutritional Content in Wild Apricot Fruits for Sustainable Apricot Production

Abstract

Apricot (Prunus armeniaca L.) trees are common from Asia to North America and have been used for delicious and nutritious fruits for centuries. Wild apricot trees show great environment plasticity and are free of pest and disease traits, both of which are important for sustainable apricot production. However, wild apricots are more common in Asia and North African countries. Wild apricot trees and fruits show great variability due to seed propagation characteristics. Seeds of wild apricots are used as rootstocks for apricot cultivars, in particular in main apricot producer countries such as Turkey, Uzbekistan, and Iran. Fruits of wild apricots are also an important food in wild apricot growing countries and add value as a sustainable nutrition source. In the present study, a total of 14 wild apricots widely grown in inner Anatolia were characterized by morphological (fruit weight, flesh/seed ratio, fruit firmness, and color index), nutritional (individual sugars and organic acids) and nutraceutical (total phenolic, total flavonoids, total carotenoid, and antioxidant activity) features. The obtained results showed that wild apricot genotypes differed from each other for most of the morphological, nutritional, and nutraceutical characteristics. The genotypes were found pest- and disease-free and had fruit weight, flesh/seed ratio, and fruit firmness of between 18.24 and 27.54 g; 8.96 and 12.44; and 4.05 and 6.03 kg/cm2, respectively. Citric acid was the dominant organic acid for fruits of all wild apricot genotypes, and ranged from 923 to 1224 mg/100 g. Sucrose was the highest soluble sugar in fruits for all wild apricots, and ranged from between 6.80 and 8.33 g/100 g. Moreover, the level of nutraceutical parameters also varied among genotypes and high amounts of total phenol and antioxidant activity were obtained in fruit extracts of IA8 genotype as 81.4 mg gallic acid equivalent per 100 g and 2.44 μmoL trolox equivalent per g, respectively. Different wild apricot genotypes are rich in certain nutritional and nutraceutical compounds, with significant variations in their levels being observed. The aim of the study was to evaluate fruits of wild apricot genotypes in terms of their total phenolics, antioxidants, and other bioactive compounds for use in future breeding programs and sustainable food and pharma industries.