Some Morphological and Biochemical Characteristics of Wild Grown Caucasian Whortleberry (Vaccinium arctostaphylos L.) Genotypes from Northeastern Turkey

Abstract

Some important morphological such as fruit weight, fruit external color, fruit shape, the number of berry per cluster, cluster color, plant crown habit, harvest date and biochemical characteristics including sugars, organic acids, total phenolics, total anthocyanins, and antioxidant capacity of thirteen wild grown Caucasian whortleberry sampled from Coruh valley, in northeastern Turkey, were determined. Antioxidant capacity was measured as FRAP assay (ferric reducing antioxidant power). Significantly differences were found among genotypes for most of the selected morphological and biochemical features. The genotypes had in general black fruit color and round shape. Harvest date varied from 2 August to 12 August. Fruit weight ranged from 0.37 to 1.08 g. Genotypes had only fructose and glucose in their fruits as sugars. Citric acid was dominant organic acids and was found between 8.87 and 11.20 g per kg of fresh fruits and followed by tartaric acid (2.85-3.30 g/kg). Fruits of genotypes exhibited very high total phenolic content, which ranged from 3740 to 5541 µg per g on a fresh weight basis. Total anthocyanin contents were between 81 and 172 µg of delphinidin-3-glucoside equivalent in per g fresh fruit indicating great diversity.