Phenotypic and biochemical diversity among peach cultivars grown under environmental conditions of Pothohar (salt range) Pakistan

Institute of Horticultural Sciences, University of Agriculture Faisalabad, Faisalabad, Punjab, Pakistan
Department of Agriculture, Abdul Wali Khan University, Mardan, KP, Pakistan
Department of Environmental sciences, Lahore College for Women University, Lahore, Pakistan
Department of Plant Pathology, University of Agriculture Faisalabad, Faisalabad, Punjab, Pakistan
Department of Chemistry, University of Agriculture Faisalabad, Faisalabad, Punjab, Pakistan
Department of Agronomy, University of Agriculture Faisalabad, Faisalabad, Punjab, Pakistan
Department of Horticulture, Barani Agriculture Research Institute, Chakwal, Punjab, Pakistan
Hainan Key Laboratory of Tropical Oil Crops Biology, Chinese Academy of Tropical Agricultural Science, Wenchang, Hainan, China
DOI
10.7287/peerj.preprints.2833v1
Subject Areas
Agricultural Science, Environmental Sciences, Soil Science
Keywords
morphological descriptors, genetic diversity, sugars, phenolics, radical scavenging activity
Copyright
© 2017 Qadri et al.
Licence
This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, reproduction and adaptation in any medium and for any purpose provided that it is properly attributed. For attribution, the original author(s), title, publication source (PeerJ Preprints) and either DOI or URL of the article must be cited.
Cite this article
Qadri R, Ubaid Z, Saleem A, Iqbal A, Nisar N, Khan MM, Haq IU, Hanif A, Khan I, Feroz A, Azam M, Ahmad S, Yang y. 2017. Phenotypic and biochemical diversity among peach cultivars grown under environmental conditions of Pothohar (salt range) Pakistan. PeerJ Preprints 5:e2833v1

Abstract

Background. Peaches are the prominent species among the fruits due to having diverse germplasm around the globe with largest number of commercial genotypes. Pakistan is also rich in various cultivars of peaches that are rarely studied for its genetic diversity. An attempt was, therefore, made to study the phenotypic variation in peach tree and fruit characteristic of 7 desirable cultivars (namely A669, Texas y-455, Florida King, Arctic Fantacy, Spring Creast, Micholea and Swanee). Methods. All cultivars were grown at the Experimental Peach Block at Barani Agriculture Research Institute (BARI), Chakwal, Punjab-Pakistan. Tree traits such as growth habit, leaf characteristics, flower characteristics, morphological and biochemical fruit traits were evaluated by using IBPGR peach descriptors. Results. Extensive variation was found among the cultivars for various traits, including tree growth (weeping, compact or open whereas), leaf length (9.0 ± 0.8 to 12.0 ± 0.4 cm), leaf width (2.6 ± 0.1 to 3.3 ± 0.2 cm), fruit weight (45.6 ±3.3 to 107 ± 8.8 g) and stone weight (4.3 ± 0.2 to 7.5 ± 0.4 g). Besides, a significant variation among the various cultivars has also been observed regarding, titratable acidity (0.64 ± 0.02 to 1.19 ± 0.04%), °Brix (7.17 ± 0.62 to 11.27 ± 0.21), ripening index (6.02 ± 0.72 to 17.2 ± 0.44), Vitamin C (75.3 ± 15 to 116.1 ± 10.5 mg 100 g-1), total sugar (13.52 ± 0.50 to 20.84 ± 1.23%), reducing sugar (5.68 ± 0.11 to 7.25 ± 0.51%), non-reducing sugar (4.12 ± 0.45 to 10.77 ± 0.8%), total phenolics (176.20 ± 7.18 to 317.72 ± 4.66 mg GAE 100 g-1), radical scavenging activity (44.25 ± 0.28 to 78.17 ± 1.43%) and reducing power (0.12 ± 0.1 to 0.22 ± 0.03). Similarly, a significant correlation was noticed between many tested traits.

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