Blueberry genotypes for the selection of new cultivars with higher contents of biologically active compounds

Abstract

Blueberries (Vaccinium corymbosum L.) and some closely related species are among the most popular commercial berry fruits. Continuous breeding programs were focusing on creating higher commercial value berry plant genotypes with high productivity, large berry size, berry firmness, and disease resistance factors. Large berry size, waxy coating, light blue color, firmness and long shelf life are the most important berry characteristics of V. corymbosum cultivars. However, due to an increasing demand of healthy foods by the consumers, breeding programs of new berry plant cultivars, which would accumulate higher concentrations of healthy compounds are carried out. Indigenous species of bog blueberry (Vaccinium uliginosum L.), highbush blueberry (Vaccinium corymbosum L.) genotypes ‘Aron’, ‘Bluecrop’, ‘Bluegold’, ‘Bluehaven’, ‘Bluejay’, ‘Blueray’, ‘Hardyblue’, ‘Nui’, ‘Patriot’, ‘Puru’, ‘Reka’, ‘Toro’ ‘Weymouth’, and half-highbush blueberry genotypes ‘Danutė’, ‘Freda’, ‘Northblue’, ‘Northland’, ‘Putte’, No.16 were investigated in this study. The juices of bog blueberry and newly bred blueberry genotypes ‘Danutė‘ and ‘Freda‘ demonstrated significantly stronger antioxidant properties than other analyzed genotypes. An inverse relationship between average berry mass and total phenolic content as well as the concentration of chlorogenic acid was observed. Moderate negative correlation was found between the berry mass and ABTS•+, FRAP and ORAC values as well. The correlations between similar characteristics measured by different methods were quite high. Thus, the genotypes containing larger amounts of phenolics possessed high values of ABTS•+, FRAP, and ORAC; positive correlation coefficients were 0.914, 0.917, and 0.903, respectively. [...].