Cherimoya Cultivars Research Articles

Pomological, Sensorial, Nutritional and Nutraceutical Profile of Seven Cultivars of Cherimoya (Annona cherimola Mill).

In this work, the food quality of four international (Campas, Chaffey, Fino de Jete and White) and three local (Daniela, Torre1 and Torre2) cultivars of Cherimoya (Annona cherimola Mill) was investigated. With this aim, pomological traits, sensorial attributes, physiochemical parameters (pH, total soluble content and total acidity), nutritional composition (macro- and micro-nutrients) and nutraceutical values (bioactive compounds, radical scavenging and antioxidant properties) were evaluated. Among the seven observed cultivars, Fino de Jete was identified as the best, not only for its commercial attributes such as pomological traits and physiochemical values, but also for its nutritional composition. On the other hand, Chaffey and Daniela were the cultivars with the highest content of polyphenols, proanthocyanidins, and with the strongest antioxidant capacity. Concerning the two local ecotypes, Torre1 and Torre2, they displayed a balanced nutritional profile that, if combined with their discrete nutraceutical, physicochemical and pomological values, may result in a reassessment of their commercial impact. In conclusion, our data provide interesting information about the pomological, nutritional, and nutraceutical properties of cherimoya fruits. Our results, in addition to promoting the commercial impact of local cultivars, may increase the use of individual cultivars in breeding programs.

Profiling of lipophilic and phenolic phytochemicals of four cultivars from cherimoya (Annona cherimola Mill.)

The lipophilic and phenolic extractives of the ripe mesocarp of four cherimoya cultivars (‘Perry Vidal’, ‘Mateus I’, ‘Mateus III’ and ‘Funchal’) from Madeira Island, were studied for the first time. The predominant lipophilic compounds are kaurene diterpenes (42.2–59.6%), fatty acids (18.0–35.6%) and sterols (9.6–23.7%). Kaur-16-en-19-oic acid is the major lipophilic component of all cultivars accounting between 554 and 1350mgkg−1 of dry material.The studied fruits also contain a high variety of flavan-3-ols, including galloylated and non-galloylated compounds. Five phenolic compounds were identified for the first time: catechin, (epi)catechin-(epi)gallocatechin, (epi)gallocatechin, (epi)afzelechin-(epi)catechin and procyanidin tetramer. ‘Mateus I’ and ‘Mateus III’ cultivars present the highest content of phenolic compounds (6299 and 9603mgkg−1 of dry weight, respectively). These results support the use of this fruit as a rich source of health-promoting components, with the capacity to prevent or delay the progress of oxidative-stress related disorders.

Identification and quantification of phenolic and other polar compounds in the edible part of Annona cherimola and its by-products by HPLC-DAD-ESI-QTOF-MS

Annona cherimola fruit is native to inter-Andean valleys from Peru and Ecuador. In the Mediterranean region, the main producer of cherimoya is the coast of Granada–Malaga (Spain), also called ‘Costa Tropical’, where the two most important cultivars found are ‘Fino de Jete’ and ‘Campa’.Cherimoya, like most fruits, is an important source of bioactive compounds, such as phenolic compounds. Therefore, the aim of this study was the tentative identification and quantification of phenolic and organic acids in pulp, peel and seed of two cherimoya cultivars (‘Fino de Jete’ and ‘Campa’) using HPLC-DAD-ESI-QTOF-MS.By using the proposed method, 21 phenolic and organic acids were detected in the edible portion of cherimoya, 37 in peel and 22 in seed. Procyanidins were the main phenolic compound family identified in the pulp and peel of the two cultivars, whereas in cherimoya seeds higher quantities of organic acids and flavonoids were detected. Most of the compounds were identified for the first time in cherimoya.According to these results, cherimoya pulp and its by-products are a natural source of procyanidins and other phenolic and polar compounds. In particular, cherimoya peel, with a higher concentration of phenolic and polar compounds in comparison with pulp and seed, represents an interesting food by-product that could be used as an ingredient in the functional food and/or pharmaceutical industry.

Determination of lipid composition of the two principal cherimoya cultivars grown in Andalusian Region

Cherimoya (Annona cherimola) is a tropical fruit, native to inter-Andean valleys from Peru and Ecuador. The main cherimoya growing in the Mediterranean basin is the coast of Granada–Malaga (Spain), the so-called Costa Tropical.Recently, the number of studies related to economic exploitation of seeds and other by-products proceeding from new oleaginous vegetable sources has increased. Therefore, the aim of this work was to characterize the lipid fraction of the edible portion of the cherimoya and its by-products.Different fatty acids were identified in pulp, seed, and skin. The major fatty acids were palmitic, oleic, linoleic, and α-linolenic. On the other hand, α-tocopherol was identified in seeds and peel. Moreover, three different phospholipids were identified. Finally, β-sitosterol was the principle sterol in all samples and, to our knowledge, γ-sitosterol was identified only in pulp and peel of cherimoya for the first time.

Influencia de la fuente de polen y su efectividad en la calidad de frutos de chirimoya (<i>Annona cherimola</i> MILL.)

Se evaluó la influencia de la fuente de polen y los horarios de polinización sobre el amarre y la calidad de frutos en 3 cultivares de chirimoya: ‘Campas’, ‘White’ y ‘Bonita’. El cultivar ‘White’ se cultiva comercialmente en California, mientras que ‘Campas´ y ´Bonita´ son cultivados, en menor escala, en España. Se realizó autopolinización y polinización cruzada artificial sin mezcla de polen en cada cultivar, en 3 horarios diferentes (07:00-09:00, 10:00-12:00 y 18:00-20:00 h), empleando la técnica del pincel. En todos los cultivares, el porcentaje de amarre de frutos con polinización natural fue bajo (de 5 a 10%). El tratamiento de autopolinización fue el menos eficiente, especialmente en ‘Bonita’ (47,90%). Por el contrario, cuando ‘Bonita’ fue usada como polen padre, el porcentaje de amarre de frutos fue significativamente alto en ‘Campas’ (85,83%) y ‘White’ (87,40%). Además, tuvo un efecto significativo al incrementar el peso del fruto, número de semillas, peso de semillas, peso de pulpa y simetría en los 3 cultivares.

The use of consecutive micrografting improves micropropagation of cherimoya ( Annona cherimola Mill.) cultivars

Clonal propagation of cherimoya via micropropagation is known to be problematic and its difficulty varies depending on the cultivar used. In order to improve the micropropagation process, the use of successive micrografting was applied to three cherimoya cultivars: ‘Fino de Jete’, ‘Bonita’ and ‘Pazicas’. Grafting nodal tissue onto a rootstock derived from ‘Fino de Jete’ juvenile material improved bud sprouting significantly in all tested cultivars. Rooting of sprouted shoots from non-grafted nodal tissue was extremely poor, however, shoots derived from explants after 1–3 consecutive micrografts displayed enhanced rooting. While ‘Fino de Jete’ and ‘Bonita’ shoots displayed 50% of rooting after two micrografts, Pazicas cultivar shoots required three micrografts to reach this percentage. Rooting was maximum after three micrografts, with 70%, 60% and 50% of rooting for ‘Fino de Jete’, ‘Bonita’ and ‘Pazicas’ shoots, respectively. Rooted plantlets were mycorrhized and acclimatized under greenhouse conditions and displayed a high rate of survival (90–100%) for all cultivars, indicating that the micrografting technique could also have an effect on the acclimation of plants.

Possibility of producing seedless fruits in 11 cultivars of cherimoya by GA3 application.

Possibility of producing seedless fruits in 11 cultivars of cherimoya by GA3 application.

Comparative analysis of the volatile fraction from Annona cherimola Mill. cultivars by solid-phase microextraction and gas chromatography–quadrupole mass spectrometry detection

The analysis of volatile compounds in Funchal, Madeira, Mateus and Perry Vidal cultivars of Annona cherimola Mill. (cherimoya) was carried out by headspace solid-phase microextraction (HS-SPME) combined with gas chromatography–quadrupole mass spectrometry detection (GC–qMSD). HS-SPME technique was optimized in terms of fibre selection, extraction time, extraction temperature and sample amount to reach the best extraction efficiency. The best result was obtained with 2 g of sample, using a divinylbenzene/carboxen/polydimethylsiloxane (DVB/CAR/PDMS) fibre for 30 min at 30 °C under constant magnetic stirring (800 rpm). After optimization of the extraction methodology, all the cherimoya samples were analysed with the best conditions that allowed to identify about 60 volatile compounds. The major compounds identified in the four cherimoya cultivars were methyl butanoate, butyl butanoate, 3-methylbutyl butanoate, 3-methylbutyl 3-methylbutanoate and 5-hydroxymethyl-2-furfural. These compounds represent 69.08 ± 5.22%, 56.56 ± 15.36%, 56.69 ± 9.28% and 71.82 ± 1.29% of the total volatiles for Funchal, Madeira, Mateus and Perry Vidal cultivars, respectively. This study showed that each cherimoya cultivars have 40 common compounds, corresponding to different chemical families, namely terpenes, esters, alcohols, fatty acids and carbonyl compounds and using PCA, the volatile composition in terms of average peak areas, provided a suitable tool to differentiate among the cherimoya cultivars.

TRACING THE GENETIC BASE OF CHERIMOYA (ANNONA CHERIMOLA) COMMERCIAL CULTIVARS THROUGH AFLP ANALYSIS OF DIVERSITY AT THE SPECIES' PUTATIVE CENTER OF ORIGIN

Cherimoya is an Andean fruit whose economic importance is increasing worldwide. Loja province, in southern Ecuador, is considered to be this species' center of origin due to the presence of great morphological variation of the fruit. This study analyzes the genetic diversity in this region at the molecular level and compares it with representative cherimoya cultivars. Principal coordinate and cluster analysis separated commercial cultivars and some Loja genotypes from the majority of Loja accessions; indicating that there is a relationship between commercial cultivars and native material from Loja province; however, a different genetic pool is present in Loja that could be used in a breeding program for this species. The genetic variation among cherimoya cultivars is limited in comparison to that of material from the Loja province.

Morphometry of the organs of cherimoya ( Annona cherimola Mill.) and analysis of fruit parameters for the characterization of cultivars, and Mexican germplasm selections

Three commercially available cherimoya cultivars (Campas, Burtons and White), one cultivar recently obtained and registered in Mexico (Cortés-II-31) and seven Mexican germplasm selections (S-196, S-256, S-260, S-266, S-9651, S-Selene and S-Carapan) were characterized by using the morphometric traits of various organs of the adult plant, together with several agronomical and chemical characteristics. The objectives were: (i) to seek an alternative approach to the definition of cherimoya cultivars through multivariate analysis, using commercial varieties and Mexican germplasm selections and (ii) to elucidate the grouping of cultivars and selections obtained by multivariate analysis on the basis of their origin and geographical distribution. Plant material was collected in 2002 from adult plants 3 years after grafting. Twenty-one morphometric characteristics (seven of leaves, nine of flowers, two of fruits and three of seeds), plus five fruit characteristics of agronomical importance and three chemical parameters of the fruit were selected for characterizing accessions. The intra-accession variability recorded for the traits selected made them suitable for identifying cultivars. All of the traits but one were capable of showing up differences between accessions at a significance level of 0.001. Principal Component Analysis (PCA) showed that the traits which yielded the maximum separation between accessions were: leaf blade form factor, angle of the fifth vein of leaves, upper angle of leaves, area of the cross-section of petals, sepal maximum projected area, weight of fruits, total soluble solids in fruits, resistance of the skin of fruits to a penetrometer and width-to-length ratio of the maximum projected area of seeds. Consequently, all of these characteristics may be of interest as descriptors for cherimoya varieties. Furthermore, four consistent groups of accessions were defined by the three-dimensional plot obtained through projecting the accessions onto the first three principal components and the tree-diagram, or dendrogram, obtained through Cluster Analysis (CA). Two of these groups were made up of accessions with a well-defined common origin. The first consisted of selections S-196, S-256, S-260 and S-266 obtained from Coatepec Harinas in Mexico State, while the second comprised selections S-Selene and S-Carapan from Purépecha native Indian communities in Michoacán State. For the other two groups the origin of the accessions forming them is not fully known. Hence, further studies, based on molecular markers, might be carried out in order to ascertain if these accessions are genetically related.

Geographic variation for isozymes in cherimoya (Annona cherimola Mill.)

Cherimoya (Anonna cherimola Mill.) is a fruit tree which originated in Peru and Ecuador and is now cultivated in several subtropical areas of the world. The characterization of cherimoya cultivars at allozyme level has been previously reported, but the geographic distribution and organization of this variation have not been fully characterized. In this study, we assessed the relationships among 206 cherimoya and four atemoya (A. cherimola ×A. squamosa) cultivars based on allozyme polymorphism. We have confirmed the genetic differences between atemoya and cherimoya cultivars, and showed that cherimoya accessions from Madeira, Bolivia and Spain form homogeneous groups of cultivars. Accessions from Chile and California form heterogeneous groups, probably due to their mixed origins. Cultivars from Peru and Ecuador showed a wide range of allelic variation, as is expected for accessions from the center of origin of this species.

MORPHOLOGICAL VARIATION OF CHERIMOYA LEAVES

The objective of the present study was to characterize, from a morphometrical point of view, the leaves of nine selections and eight cultivars of cherimoya (Annona cherimola Mill.) and the differences existing in leaf characteristics. Nine-leaf samples were obtained per accession, they were digitalized and morphometric measurements were made with an image analyzer. Aside from correlation, principal components and cluster analyses were used to analyze the data. Leaf morphometric characters providing most discrimination were: leaf area and angle of the fifth vein (first principal component); index of roundmess and the radius axis/length axes ratio (second principal component); petiole length and number of veins (third principal component). These three first components accumulated 80 % of the total variation. Of the characters indicated, index of roundness, petiole length, and radius axis/length axis ratio did not show any type of correlation among them nor the other previous ones mentioned. From the analysis, it was possible to separate the cultivars and selections into six well defined groups, this suggested the existence of morphometric variability for the leaves of this species, and that this variability may be useful in differentiating germplasm, and, as a consequence, in the elaboration of descriptors.

HORTICULTURAL POTENTIAL OF ANDEAN FRUIT CROPS EXPLORING THEIR CENTRE OF ORIGIN

HORTICULTURAL POTENTIAL OF ANDEAN FRUIT CROPS EXPLORING THEIR CENTRE OF ORIGIN

Genetical Diversity of Cherimoya Cultivars Revealed by Amplified Fragment Length Polymorphism(AFLP) Analysis.

Genetic diversity of 19 cherimoya cultivars classified into five types based on their skin texture was taxonomically identified by Amplified Fragment Length Polymorphism (AFLP). AFLP analysis revealed 33 reproducible amplified bands with an average number ranging from 10 to 47 bands per primer combination. The size of the amplified bands ranged from 50 to 450 bp in all the primer combinations. More than 30% (88/264) of the bands were polymorphic among the cultivars. The most efficient combination (E-AGT/M-8) yielded 21 polymorphic bands. A total of 264 AFLP bands enabled to detect the genetic variation among cherimoya cultivars. The consensus of eight trees with the highest degree of parsimony reflected known relationships of some cultivars. Cladogram constructed by AFLP revealed that all the 19 cultivars could be clearly differentiated. The similarity indexes were estimated for cherimoya, and the values ranged from 0.33 to 0.95. The minimum value was observed between‘Fino De Jete' and‘Ott' or ‘Sallmon' and the maximum was detected between‘Bays' and‘Bay Ott'. Although these results were not consistent with morphological classifications, AFLP provided a better resolution in revealing the phylogeny of the cherimoya cultivars. It is concluded tbat AFLP enables to analyse the phylogenetic relationships of cherimoya cultivars.

Characterizing Isozymes of Spanish Cherimoya Cultivars

Isozymes have been used as genetic markers to characterize seven Spanish cherimoya (Annona cherimola Mill.) cultivars. Fifteen enzyme systems were analyzed. Ten varied [aconitase (ACO, EC 4.2.1.3), alcohol dehydrogenase (ADH, EC 1.1.1.1), glutamate oxalacetate transaminase (GOT, EC 2.6.1.1), isocitrate dehydrogenase (IDH, EC 1.1.1.42), leucine aminopeptidase (LAP, EC 3.4.11.1), malate dehydrogenase (MDH, EC 1.1.1.37), phosphoglucose isomerase (PGI, EC 5.3.1.9), phosphoghtcomutase (PGM, EC 2.7.5.1), shikimate dehydrogenase (SKDH, EC 1.1.1.25), and triose phosphate isomerase (TPI, EC 5.3.1.1)] and five did not [acid phosphatase (ACPH, EC 3.1.3.2), diaphorase (DIA, EC 1.6.4.3), malic enzyme (ME, EC 1.1.1.40), 6-phosphogluconic dehydrogenase (6PGDH, EC 1.1.1.44), and superoxide dismutase (SOD, EC 1.15.1.1)]. Two cultivars, Campa and Campa Mejorada, had identical banding patterns for all enzymes tested. All others were identified as distinct cultivars because of isozyme differences. The identical isozyme profiles of `Campa' and `Campa Mejorada' probably indicate that they are the same cultivar. A cluster analysis of isozyme profiles showed that Spanish cultivars were clearly different from Californian cultivars.

The effects of root temperature on growth and dry matter production of Annona species

High root temperatures increased shoot extension, leaf and flower production, and leaf and root dry weight in Annona species. With clonally propagated trees of the custard apple cultivar ‘African Pride’ ( Annona cherimola × A. squamosa), significant increases in root dry matter production were recorded at root temperatures between 17 and 22°C. High root temperatures (27°C) were not detrimental to plant growth. Most cherimoya ( A. cherimola) cultivars produced more dry matter at the low root temperature (15°C) compared to the more tropical species ( Annona cherimola × A. squamosa, A. squamosa and A. glabra).