THE FUNCTIONAL PROPERTIES OF SWEET CHERRY AS A NEW CRITERION IN A BREEDING PROGRAM

The agronomic requirements (chilling unit, flowering, fruit set, harvest date, productivity, resistance and fruit quality (weight, colour, firmness, sweetness, taste) are traditionally the main aspects considered in a plant breeding program.
However, the content of functional compouds could be taken into account when parentals are chosen for a traditional or biotechnological breeding program.
In this work some functional properties such as the contents of anthocyanins, polyphenols and antioxidant activity were studied in 11 sweet cherry cultivars harvested at commercial ripening stage.
The results indicated that two cultivars (‘Cristalina’ and ‘Sonata’) had the highest levels in total anthocyanins (≈200 mg 100 g^-1) while ‘Brooks’ and ‘Sommerset’ showed the lowest (<70 mg 100 g^-1). On the other hand, ‘Sonata’, ‘Cristalina’, ‘New Star’ and ‘Sunburst’ had a total phenolic content over 90 mg 100 g^-1, while in ‘Prime Giant’ and ‘Brooks’ this content was lower than 70 mg 100 g^-1. The total antioxidant activity was determined in both hydrophilic and lipophilic fractions, with ‘Sonata’ and ‘Cristalina’ being the cultivars with the highest values, while ‘Brooks’ showed the lowest one.
Considering these results, some sweet cherry cultivars with very good fruit quality parameters, like ‘Brooks’, do not reach the maxima functional properties.
Other cultivars with high functional properties (like ‘Sonata’) could be considered as a good parental for a sweet cherry breeding program with the aim to improve other characteristics.

I International Symposium on Biotechnology of Fruit Species: BIOTECHFRUIT2008

H.M. Díaz-Mula, D. Valero, P.J. Zapata, F. Guillén, S. Castillo, D. Martínez-Romero, M. Serrano

Prunus avium sp., antioxidants, phenols, quality

https://doi.org/10.17660/ActaHortic.2009.839.34