Fruit quality and biochemical characteristics of new early ripening apricots of Turkey

Abstract

In this study, the important fruit quality characteristics of 11 early ripening and promising apricot hybrids and reference cultivars recently developed in Turkey were analyzed. A large variation was observed between the genotypes in terms of fruit size (fruit weight ranged from 34.28 to 72.53 g). The total soluble solids which is one of the significant fruit quality parameters for the table apricots, was found between 10.07 and 18.27% and fruit flesh/kernel rate was between 9.6 and 18.42. Epicatechin, rutin, catechin, chlorogenic acid, epigallocatechin gallate and β-carotene were found to be the highest bioactive compounds. A large variation was also determined among the genotypes in this regard. ABP-4-23 and ABP-7-12 apricot genotypes were rich with respect to catechin, chlorogenic acid, epicatechin, rutin and β-carotene. The highest catachin and epicatechin contents were obtained in ABP-4-23 (176.76 and 517.45 mg/kg, respectively). In terms of β-carotene ABP-2-24 and ABP-1-18 presented the highest values (127.45 and 119.54 mg/kg, respectively). Fruit weight was found highly and positively correlated with kernel weight and total soluble solids (r = 0.65 and r = 0.61, respectively). Fruit weight was also found to be moderately correlated with rutin, quercetin, and β-carotene, while corrrelations was negative for rutin and β-carotene. Total acidity was moderately correlated with catechin, epigallocatechin gallate and β-carotene in positive way.