Impact of year of harvest, genotype and cultivation method on bioactives and Pru d 1 allergen content in plums

Summary

The present work studied the effect of the year of harvest, the genotype and the cultivation
method on the nutritional quality and the allergen content of three plum cultivars. The common
quality parameters and the phytochemical content strongly varied with the year and the cultivar,
while the system of cultivation had a minor influence. In particular, ascorbic acid greatly
decreased in 2016 compared to 2015, while polyphenols were higher in 2016. The health-promoting
compounds, and particularly phenolics, were significantly correlated with the antioxidant
capacity. Finally, the allergen content was strongly dependent on the content of flavan-3-ols,
suggesting that this class of phenolics is determinant in influencing the allergen content in
plums. Results showed that the major factor affecting the quality and the concentration of natural
metabolites of plum, in addition to the diversity among genotypes, is the year-to-year variation,
whereas the system of cultivation plays a marginal role.