Determination of Fruit Characteristics, Nutrients and Biochemical Contents of Transvalia (Prunus persica L.) Peach Variety Grafted on Different Clonal Rootstocks Obtained by Selection and Hybridization

Abstract

Abstract Rootstocks are frequently used in modern orchard practise due to their special characteristics. They not only eliminate the limiting factors in fruit growing, but also have advantages such as increasing productivity, fruit quality, dwarfing and nutrient yield. In addition, rootstocks have a significant impact on plant development, fruit characteristics, nutrients and biochemical content. The study was conducted to investigate the effects of different peach rootstocks on fruit quality, nutrient content and biochemical content. A total of 16 rootstocks of the species P. persica were used as test material. The morphological characteristics include fruit weight (297,33 g), fruit width (83.5 mm), fruit length (77.58 mm), seed weight (9.96 g), seed width (28.16 mm) and seed length (43 mm). The rootstock GGF3 has the highest values (0.47 mm). The effect of rootstocks on nutrients (except Al, Ca, Cu, K, P and Fe) in the fruits was statistically significant. The effect of rootstocks on nutrients (except Pb, Na and Cr) in the leaves was found to be statistically significant. The effect of the individual rootstocks on the plant nutrients varied. It has been found that there is a positive relationship between micro and macronutrients. The highest mineral content in peach rootstocks was found in rootstock NGF14 with P (1071,34 mg kg− 1) and K (4234,30 mg kg− 1), in rootstock NG1 with Ca (539,6 mg kg− 1) and in rootstock FG64 with Mg (289.98 mg kg− 1 ). With regard to the analysed characteristics, a large variation between the peach rootstocks was observed. According to the results of biochemical analysis, statistically significant differences were found in total biochemical contents. Among the peach rootstocks, KL38 rootstock had the highest content of total flavonoids with 25.68 mg 100gr-1 the highest anthocyanin content with 7.48 mg kg-1, KL38 rootstock also had the highest phenolic content with 137,19 mg kg-1, and NGF14 rootstock had the highest antioxidant content with 349,46 mg kg-1. According to principal component analysis (PCA), the eigenvalue of 13 PCs was above 1.0 and accounted for 85.08% of the total variation; this effectively showed the variation among peach rootstocks with respect to the traits analysed. These results show that most of the peach rootstocks analysed are rich in minerals, nutritional values and bioactive substances. Therefore, these rootstocks, which have high nutritional value and important health properties, can be used as genetic material in peach breeding programmes and similar studies for the development of new peach varieties. The data obtained show that rootstock varieties have a significant impact on the aforementioned traits and that the selection of rootstock varieties has a very important place, especially in economic breeding.