Abstract
BackgroundIncreasing antioxidant levels in fruit through breeding is an important option to support higher antioxidant intake particularly when fruit consumption is low. Indeed, if nutritional components are also combined with a high standard of sensorial fruit quality, the perspective for consumer health can be further improved by encouraging more fruit consumption. Wild species are valued by strawberry breeders as sources of novel traits, especially for pest resistance and abiotic stress tolerance. Furthermore, previous investigations have shown improvements in fruit nutritional quality in breeding material that originated from Fragaria virginiana ssp. glauca (FVG) inter-species crosses. Recently, commercial varieties of strawberries have also shown interesting variability in fruit nutritional quality.ResultsStrawberry fruit sensorial and nutritional qualities generated by Fragaria inter-species and intra-species crosses were evaluated on 78 offspring derived from 8 families: two that originated from F. × ananassa intra-species crossing; three from back-crossing of F1– FVG × F. × ananassa; and three from back-crossing of BC1– FVG × F. × ananassa. The genetic variability from the three types of cross combinations was analyzed by calculation of the correlations among the fruit sensorial and nutritional parameters. The results obtained show that two subsequent back-crossing generations from an inter-species crossing combination with F. virginiana ssp. glauca provides useful improvement of the fruit nutritional and sensorial qualities that is combined with agronomic standards that are close to those requested at the commercial level. Improvements of these traits can also be achieved by programming F. × ananassa intra-species crosses and producing progeny with productivity traits more similar to those of the commercial cultivars.ConclusionsThe two types of combination programs (inter-species back-crosses, and intra-species crosses) can be used to improve strawberry nutritional quality.
Highlights
Greater consumption of fruit and vegetables is considered as one way of increasing the intake of antioxidants, and like other berries, strawberry represents one of the most important sources of bioactive compounds with high antioxidant capacity [1,2,3,4,5,6]
With the aim of studying strawberry fruit sensory and nutritional quality generated by Fragaria inter-species and intraspecies crosses, 78 offspring derived from 8 families were evaluated, two originating from F. 6 ananassa intra-species crosses; three from back-crossing of F1– Fragaria virginiana ssp. glauca (FVG) 6 F. 6 ananassa; and three from back-crossing of BC1– FVG 6 F. 6 ananassa (Figure 1)
SS content, TA, total antioxidant capacity (TAC), total phenols content (TPH) and anthocyanins content (ACY) were significantly higher in the BC1 and BC2 back-crossed populations that contained genes from Fragaria virginiana ssp glauca (Table 2) than in the F. 6 ananassa intra-species crosses, while the intra-species crosses were firmer and more darkly colored (Table 2)
Summary
Greater consumption of fruit and vegetables is considered as one way of increasing the intake of antioxidants, and like other berries, strawberry represents one of the most important sources of bioactive compounds with high antioxidant capacity [1,2,3,4,5,6]. Increasing the antioxidant levels in fruit through breeding and/ or biotechnology is an important option to maintain a higher antioxidant intake, when fruit consumption is low. If nutritional bioactive components are combined with a high standard of sensorial fruit quality, consumer fruit consumption can be encouraged, with much greater positive health effects [3], as would be the case for strawberry fruit [7]. Commercial varieties of strawberries have shown interesting variability in fruit nutritional quality
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