Sugars, organic acids, and total phenolic content in fruit of 25 wild and cultivated berry species were identified and quantified with high-performance liquid chromatograph. The composition of sugars, organic acids, and total phenolic compounds in various species of Vaccinium, Rubus, Ribes, and Fragaria genus was evaluated. Additonally, total phenolics of less known berry species of the Morus, Amelanchier, Sorbus, Sambucus, Rosa, Lycium, Actinidia, and Aronia genus were determined in wild growing as well as in cultivated fruits. Significant differences in the concentration of sugars and organic acids were detected among the berry species. Glucose and fructose were the most abundant sugars in berry fruits and the major organic acids were malic and citric acid. However, in kiwi fruit, sucrose represented as much as 71.9% of total sugars. Sorbitol has been detected and quantified in chokeberry, rowanberry, and eastern shadbush fruit. The highest content of total analyzed sugars was determined in rowanberry fruit, followed by dog rose, eastern shadbush, hardy kiwifruit, American cranberry, chokeberry, and jostaberry fruit. Rowanberry stands out as the fruit with the highest content of total analyzed organic acids, followed by jostaberry, lingonberry, red gooseberry, hardy kiwifruit, and black currant. The berries of white gooseberry, black currant, red currant, and white currant had the lowest sugar/organic acid ratio and were thus perceptively the sourest species analyzed. On the other hand, the species with highest sugar/organic acid ratio were goji berry, eastern shadbush, black mulberry, and wild grown blackberry. The highest amounts of total phenols were quantified in chokeberry fruit. Wild strawberry, raspberry, and blackberry had 2- to 5-fold more total phenolics compared to cultivated plants.

Practical Application:  The fruit of analyzed berry species contained different levels of sugars, organic acids, and total phenolics. Moreover, it has been demonstrated that wild grown species generally contain more phenolics than cultivated ones. This information is interesting for nutritionists as well as berry growers and breeders who can promote the cultivation of species and new cultivars with higher phenolic content.

Composition of Sugars, Organic Acids, and Total Phenolics in 25 Wild or Cultivated Berry Species

A broad range of anthocyanins (glycosides of cyanidin, pelargonidin, peonidin, delphinidin, malvidin, and petunidin) was identified and quantified in the fruit of 24 wild and cultivated berry species using HPLC-DAD-MS2. The anthocyanin composition in species of Ribes, Rubus, Vaccinium, and Fragaria genus as well as in less known species of Crataegus, Morus, Amelanchier, Sorbus, Sambucus and Aronia genus was determined. Cyanidin was the most commonly occurring anthocyanidin, meanwhile malvidin glycosides were only detected in blueberries. Glycosides of pelargonidin were detected in raspberries, strawberry, black mulberry and chokeberry. Peonidin glycosides were identified in hawthorn, black currant and gooseberry as well as in blueberry species. The richest species in the content of peonidin glycosides were blueberries. Delphinidin glycosides were the prevailing form of anthocyanins in black currant and bilberry. The highest total anthocyanin content was determined in dark colored fruit of cultivated elderberry and bilberry whereas light-colored dog rose and Chinese hawthorn fruit had the lowest anthocyanin content. The composition of anthocyanidin glycosides did not differ between the fruit of wild growing and cultivated species, but their contents were generally different.

Anthocyanin composition of different wild and cultivated berry species

HPLC-MSn identification and quantification of flavonol glycosides in 28 wild and cultivated berry species.

What is quality

The onset of the growing season of trees has been earlier by 2.3 days per decade during the last 40 years in temperate Europe because of global warming. The effect of temperature on plant phenology is, however, not linear because temperature has a dual effect on bud development. On one hand, low temperatures are necessary to break bud endodormancy, and, on the other hand, higher temperatures are necessary to promote bud cell growth afterward. Different process-based models have been developed in the last decades to predict the date of budbreak of woody species. They predict that global warming should delay or compromise endodormancy break at the species equatorward range limits leading to a delay or even impossibility to flower or set new leaves. These models are classically parameterized with flowering or budbreak dates only, with no information on the endodormancy break date because this information is very scarce. Here, we evaluated the efficiency of a set of phenological models to accurately predict the endodormancy break dates of three fruit trees. Our results show that models calibrated solely with budbreak dates usually do not accurately predict the endodormancy break date. Providing endodormancy break date for the model parameterization results in much more accurate prediction of this latter, with, however, a higher error than that on budbreak dates. Most importantly, we show that models not calibrated with endodormancy break dates can generate large discrepancies in forecasted budbreak dates when using climate scenarios as compared to models calibrated with endodormancy break dates. This discrepancy increases with mean annual temperature and is therefore the strongest after 2050 in the southernmost regions. Our results claim for the urgent need of massive measurements of endodormancy break dates in forest and fruit trees to yield more robust projections of phenological changes in a near future.

Can phenological models predict tree phenology accurately in the future? The unrevealed hurdle of endodormancy break.

Content of individual sugars,organic acids,total phenolics (TPH),some important phenolic compounds (kaempferol, myricetin, quercetin, and ellagic acid) and total antioxidant capacity (TAC) in the fruits of strawberry, raspberry and blackberry were studied. A comparison was made between cultivars and wild relatives of each species (Fragaria vesca L.,Rubus idaeus L.and Rubus fruticosusL.).The main sugars found were fructose and glucose both in the fruits of wild species and the studied cultivars. Citric acid was determined to be the major organic acid in most of tested berries with the exception of blackberry cultivars, where malic acid was dominant. The content of individual phenolic compounds varied among the wild species, as well as among the studied cultivars. Ellagic acid content was higher in F. vesca, R. idaeus and R. fruticosus (122.5 mg/g FW, 12.71 mg/g FW and 61.7 mg/g FW, respectively)thanthatobtainedinanalyzedcultivars.Overall,TPHexpressedhighervalues inthewildstrawberryandblackberryspeciesincomparisontothestudiedcultivars, and consequently, the highest levels of TAC were recorded in F. vesca (5.78 mg asc/ g FW),followed byR.fruticosus(4.95 mg asc/g FW).

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Chemical and antioxidant properties of cultivated and wild fragaria and rubus berries

Morphological characterization of ‘Oblačinska’ sour cherry by multivariate analysis

Thirty vineyard peach [Prunus persica (L.) Batsch.] genotypes were studied to determine the overall degree of polymorphism and to detect similarities among genotypes. The variation was observed for traits related to phenology, morphology, yield and fruit quality. Many fruit characteristics that are important to breeders are present in this collection. The majority of important correlations were determined between the characteristics representing fruit size (fruit width, fruit height, fruit weight and stone weight) and between those ones representing fruit quality (fruit attractiveness, taste, flavour and soluble solids content). Cluster and principal component analysis showed a considerable phenotypical diversity in the vineyard peach germplasm. Clustering of genotypes was in accordance with its purpose (fresh consumption or rootstocks production). Parameters with high discriminating values were those related to fruit size and fruit quality.

Multivariate analysis of vineyard peach [ Prunus persica (L.) Batsch.] germplasm collection

The aim of this study was to examine different methods for determining growing degree-day (GDD) threshold temperatures for two phenological stages (full bloom and harvest) and select the optimal thresholds for a greater number of apricot (Prunus armeniaca L.) cultivars grown in the Belgrade region. A 10-year data series were used to conduct the study. Several commonly used methods to determine the threshold temperatures from field observation were evaluated: (1) the least standard deviation in GDD; (2) the least standard deviation in days; (3) the least coefficient of variation in GDD; (4) regression coefficient; (5) the least standard deviation in days with a mean temperature above the threshold; (6) the least coefficient of variation in days with a mean temperature above the threshold; and (7) the smallest root mean square error between the observed and predicted number of days. In addition, two methods for calculating daily GDD, and two methods for calculating daily mean air temperatures were tested to emphasize the differences that can arise by different interpretations of basic GDD equation. The best agreement with observations was attained by method (7). The lower threshold temperature obtained by this method differed among cultivars from −5.6 to −1.7°C for full bloom, and from −0.5 to 6.6°C for harvest. However, the “Null” method (lower threshold set to 0°C) and “Fixed Value” method (lower threshold set to −2°C for full bloom and to 3°C for harvest) gave very good results. The limitations of the widely used method (1) and methods (5) and (6), which generally performed worst, are discussed in the paper.

Evaluation of different methods for determining growing degree-day thresholds in apricot cultivars

Self-compatibility in 18 European plum cultivars was examined using the method of fluorescence microscopy. According to selfcompatibility, cultivars were divided into two groups: self-compatible and self-incompatible. In self-compatible cultivars the number of pistils, where pollen tubes reached the base of the style varied from 32.00% (Anna Spath) to 91.18% (Wangenheims Fruhzwetsche). Mean number of pollen tubes at the base of style in these cultivars ranged from 0.52 to 3.97. Cultivars were considered self-incompatible if pollen tubes stopped their growth in the style along with forming characteristic swellings at their tips. Of the studied cultivars, 13 were found to be self-compatible: Wangenheims Fruhzwetsche, Cacanska Lepotica, Valjevka, California Blue, Cacanska Rodna, Italian Prune, Stanley, Požegaca, Herman, Bluefre, Jelica, Ruth Gerstetter and Anna Spath, while 5 were found to be self-incompatible: Cacanska Rana, Zimmers Fruhzwetsche, Cacanska Najbolja, Pacific and President.

http://www.doiserbia.nb.rs/img/doi/0534-0012/2010/0534-00121002387N.pdf

Dragan Milatović

Papers

Chemical and antioxidant properties of cultivated and wild fragaria and rubus berries

Morphological characterization of ‘Oblačinska’ sour cherry by multivariate analysis

Multivariate analysis of vineyard peach [ Prunus persica (L.) Batsch.] germplasm collection

Evaluation of different methods for determining growing degree-day thresholds in apricot cultivars

Examining self-compatibility in plum (Prunus domestica L.) by fluorescence microscopy