Articles publicats (Química, Física i Ciències Ambientals i del Sòl)
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- ItemOpen AccessAntioxidant capacity, quality, and anthocyanin and nutrient contents of several peach cultivars [Prunus persica (L.) Batsch] grown in Spain(American Chemical Society, 2013) Reig Córdoba, Gemma; Iglesias i Castellarnau, Ignasi; López Gatius, Fernando; Alegre, S.Antioxidant capacity, quality, and anthocyanin and nutrient contents of 106 peach cultivars from different breeding programs were evaluated at the Estació Experimental de Lleida, IRTA (Catalonia, Spain), during two growing seasons (2010 and 2011). High variability was found among cultivars within each quality trait, where different cultivars were scored as the best and the worst. For example, a 5-fold range (2.17–12.07 g of malic acid L–1), 6-fold range (144.20–711.73 μg of Trolox g–1 of FW), and 11-fold range (0.70–11.43 mg of cyanidin-3-glucoside kg–1 of FW) were observed in titratable acidity, relative antioxidant capacity, and anthocyanin content, respectively. The breeding program within each fruit type (melting peach, nectarine, and flat peach) and qualitative pomological traits also had significant effects on the quality. Nevertheless, each breeding program had specific characteristics that distinguished it from the others. Even so, within each breeding program, there is high variability among cultivars. Therefore, growers should not base their strategy exclusively on the choice of breeding program. Principal component analysis for each fruit type (melting peach, nectarine, nonmelting peach, and flat peach) allowed a selection of a set of cultivars from different breeding programs with the highest quality performance. For example, cultivars such as ‘Azurite’, ‘IFF 1230’, ‘Amiga’, ‘Fire Top’, ‘African Bonnigold’, ‘Ferlot’, ‘Mesembrine’, and ‘Platifirst’ had higher sweetness and flavor compared to the others. Therefore, this study could help breeders to make decisions for the selection of new cultivars able to improve the quality features of fruit intake, technicians to know better quality performance of peach cultivars, and consumers to meet their expectations for fruit with high health benefits and a specific taste.
- ItemOpen AccessAdaptability of peach cultivars [Prunus persica (L.) Batsch] to the climatic conditions of the Ebro Valley, with special focus on fruit quality(Elsevier, 2015) Reig Córdoba, Gemma; Alegre, S.; López Gatius, Fernando; Iglesias i Castellarnau, IgnasiAdaptability of 89 peach cultivars of distinct origin to climatic conditions of the Ebro Valley at the IRTA-Experimental Station of Lleida (Lleida, northern Spain) over three consecutive years (2009–2011) was studied. For this purpose, several agronomic, morphological and internal quality traits of the fruits were evaluated. Agronomic traits included bloom and harvest dates, yield, and yield efficiency, while morphological traits encompassed fruit shape and size, percentage of red skin, and an appearance quality index. The latter was established to facilitate the assessment of each cultivar on the basis of fruit appearance. Internal quality parameters included flesh firmness, soluble solids content, titratable acidity, sensory attributes, and relative antioxidant capacity. Under the climatic conditions of the Ebro Valley, extensive variability was observed for most quantitative and qualitative (breeding program, fruit type and flesh color) traits. In terms of agronomic performance and fruit quality (fruit appearance included), we considered that a well-adapted cultivar for a given area should achieve the following characteristics: high yield efficiency, high appearance index quality, high relative antioxidant capacity, strong flavor, and medium to high ripening index. However, according to the different breeding programs, fruit types, and flesh colors evaluated in this study, none of them simultaneously showed these characteristics. However, some achieved a number of the desired traits. A principal component analysis for melting peach, nectarine, non-melting peach and flat peach cultivars revealed the best ones for each fruit type. The results showed that cultivars do not combine all the desired traits. Nevertheless, these findings are valuable for breeding strategies aiming to achieve cultivars with better adaptation to the climatic conditions of the Ebro Valley.
- ItemOpen AccessHow does simulated frost treatment affect peach [Prunus persica (L.)] flowers of different cultivars from worldwide breeding programmes?(Elsevier, 2013) Reig Córdoba, Gemma; Iglesias i Castellarnau, Ignasi; Miranda, C.; López Gatius, Fernando; Alegre, S.The proportion of frost damaged flowers (FD) and frost symptoms (S1, S2, S3 and S4) was evaluated on 56 peach cultivars from several breeding programmes during 2010 and 2011 seasons in order to understand the tolerance of peach cultivars to low temperature and the susceptibility of their pistils to frost damage. The cultivars were tested at full bloom (‘F’) under simulated frost treatment. Fifteen of these cultivars were also selected in 2012 to calculate frost temperatures (FT10, FT50 and FT90) and their relationship to pistil dry matter. Mid blooming cultivars showed lower tolerances to low temperature than late and early blooming cultivars. Their pistils were also more susceptible to low temperature, showing a higher proportion of more severe symptoms. Blooming time did not affect the degree of pistil susceptibility. Fruit type or peach subspecies (peach, nectarine and flat peach) showed similar susceptibilities to low temperatures; this was not, however, the case for pistils. Significant differences in FD were found for nectarine breeding programmes, but not for peach breeding programmes. The PSB nectarine breeding programme included most of the hardiest cultivars. The susceptibility of pistils to frost damage varied according to breeding programme. Great variability and significant differences were observed between cultivars with regard to FD and frost symptoms. The three frost temperatures considered in this study (FT10, FT50 and FT90) corroborated this variability, mainly because significant differences between cultivars were found within each frost temperature. Nevertheless, no significant relationship was found between them and pistil dry matter. These results provide growers with important information to help them when selecting cultivars for new orchards.
- ItemOpen AccessAgronomical performance under Mediterranean climatic conditions among peach [Prunus persica L. (Batsch)] cultivars originated from different breeding programmes(Elsevier, 2013) Reig Córdoba, Gemma; Alegre, S.; López Gatius, Fernando; Iglesias i Castellarnau, IgnasiNowadays more than 70 active peach breeding programmes are developed around the world, all of them, regardless of country, with their specific objectives. Nevertheless, there is no currently available information comparing different peach cultivars based in their origin in terms of agronomic performance and fruit quality under Mediterranean climatic conditions. For this reason, we evaluated the influence of fruit type, origin (continent and breeding programme) and cultivar on adaptability, production and susceptibility to powdery mildew. A study was carried out on 112 cultivars at the IRTA-Experimental Station of Lleida (Spain) during the 2009 and 2011 seasons in which melting peach cultivars presented better agronomical performance than nectarine, nonmelting peach and flat peach cultivars. Comparing continents, USA versus Europe, in terms of fruit type, melting peach and nectarine cultivars from Europe were best adapted to Mediterranean conditions. According to origin by fruit type, melting peach cultivars from Monteaux-Caillet, ASF, Zaiger and A. Minguzzi showed the best agronomical performance. In the case of nectarine, the ASF, PSB and Bradford breeding programmes provided the most interesting cultivars. The fact that there are only a few breeding programmes for flat peaches makes them all the more interesting to producers. In most of the traits studied important variability among cultivars was recorded, either within the same breeding programme. In spite of these results, the cultivars in each breeding programme were clearly different; this explains why producers tend to adopt the strategy of choosing cultivars from different breeding programmes.
- ItemOpen AccessSmart lactate delivery from electro-responsive electrospun fibers(Elsevier, 2026) Haro Gutiérrez, Pilar A.; Resina, Leonor; Casanovas Salas, Jordi; Amoura, Damia; Sánchez, Margarita; Pérez-Madrigal, Maria M.; Alemán, CarlosThe sustained administration of lactate for several days promotes mammalian cardiac tissue regeneration. In this work, electrical stimulation is used for tuning the kinetic release profile of electro-responsive fiber mats loaded with lactate, which are prepared from electrospun solutions containing polylactic acid (PLA), polyaniline (PAni) at different amounts (0.1–0.5 % w/w), and lactate. The resulting PLA/PAni fibers, with average diameters ranging between 1.9 and 2.3 μm, depending on the PAni content, are electroactive, biocompatible, and exhibit higher resistance to elastic deformation than PLA fibers. The release profiles obtained without and with electrical stimuli only show an uncontrolled burst lactate delivery, which is significantly boosted when a negative voltage is applied. Thus, electrical stimulation appears to promote the migration of lactate from the interior of the fibers to the surface, from where it is immediately released. In order to delay the lactate delivery and allow some control on the system, a polycaprolactone (PCL) coating was applied to the PLA/PAni fiber mats. Electrically stimulated PCL/PLA/PAni shows a controlled and sustained release of lactate, which is progressively delivered over time. While the burst release, which is similar without and with stimulation, is smaller for coated than for uncoated fibers, the application of a voltage to PCL/PLA/PAni provides an appreciable and sustained cumulative lactate release that increases linearly with time over nine days. This control, which is attributed to the effect of the voltage on the polyester altering its porosity, renders the electroactive lactate-loaded PLA/PAni fibers promising for cardiac tissue engineering applications.