Abstract
Acerola fruit is one of the richest natural sources of ascorbic acid. As a consequence, acerola fruit and its products are in demand worldwide for the production of health supplements and for the development of functional products. Acerola phenotypes (103) were screened in Western Paraná State, in the Southern region of Brazil, and evaluated to obtain information on fruit quality characteristics with the aim of using them in future breeding programs. Principal Component and Hierarchical Cluster analysis were performed on all datasets to explore the variability among samples and to identify the main clusters. A great variability among phenotypes was observed, with potential for use in breeding programs. Seven phenotypes were selected as candidates in the next breeding program, characterized by high vitamin C content and yield, or higher values of fruit size and color parameters. Four belong to cluster 1 and three to cluster 2. Specifically, two phenotypes, belonging to cluster 2, showed the best performance in terms of vitamin C (2150 mg 100 g−1 pulp and 2625 mg 100 g−1 pulp respectively) and pulp yield (74.8% and 82.3% respectively), and one phenotype, belonging to cluster 1, for high pulp yield, fruit size and vitamin C content (80.3% 6.43 g and 2490 mg 100 g−1 pulp).
Highlights
The acerola fruits from the 103 phenotypes presented a large variability in terms of fresh weight, fruit volume, pulp yield, size and color parameters (Figure 3 and Table S1)
In 66% of the phenotypes, the mean fruit mass was over 4 g, the limit required by the industry [12] (Table S1)
Pulp yield ranged from 57.2% to 90.1% with a mean value of 76.05% and a median of 76.14% (Figure 3 and Table S1)
Summary
In addition to vitamin C, acerola contains many other functional substances, such as phenols, anthocyanins and carotenoids that make it a healthy food [6,7]. The amount of vitamin C and phenols in acerola are generally the result of a complex combination of multiple factors such as cultivar, environment, and conditions of cultivation and storage [11,12,13,14,15,16,17]. Brazil is the world’s largest producer of acerola [6] with more than 7000 hectares under cultivation. The most important are: Bahia (1466 ha), Paraná (919 ha), Rio Grande do Norte (800 ha), Agriculture 2021, 11, 1078 producer of acerola [6] with more than 7000 hectares under cultivation. The most important are: Bahia (1466 ha), Paraná (919 ha), Rio Grande do
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