Influence of agricultural cultivation methods on the physicochemical and colour parameters of Florina variety apples immediately after harvest

Galya Dobrevska, Petya Ivanova and Manol Dallev

Abstract: The scientific experiment was conducted in 2020-2021 on the trial fields of Agricultural University – Plovdiv in order to assess the influence of different cultivation methods on the physicochemical and colour parameters of Florina variety apple fruits.The assessment is based on the content of soluble dry substances, %; active acidity; total polyphenols content, mg GAE/100g; as well as antioxidant capacity, μmol TE/100g. The CieLab system was applied to determine colour properties by using tool-assisted measurements of colour brightness, red/green and yellow hues.
Research findings demonstrated that biologically-cultivated apple fruits had higher active acidity and contained less soluble dry substances in comparison to conventionally-cultivated varieties. The implemented agricultural technique affected the active acidity values of biologically-cultivated fruits, as well as the percentage content of soluble dry substances in conventionally-cultivated fruits.
Out of all experimental variants, the antioxidant activity, total polyphenols content and red colour hue have the highest values in the fruits of the second- biologically-cultivated variant as a result of the applied agricultural technique.
The Florina variety fruits demonstrate a dominating yellow hue as opposed to the red and green hues of all studied variants in the experiment. Colour brightness is higher among conventionally-cultivated apples when compared to biologically- cultivated ones.

Keywords: apple; colour parameters; physicochemical indicators

Date published: 2022-03-11