Triterpenes in apple cuticle of organically and IP cultivated apples
Abstract: Apples are produced all over the world both for domestic consumption and for export. In Sweden apples are the most common grown fruit both in commercial production and in home gardens. The outermost cover of the fruit is the cuticle. The cuticle is interesting as it serves many different functions such as protecting the fruit from water loss and invasions of pathogens. The cuticle of apples is also interesting in a human health point of view, especially the triterpenes that have been indicated to have medical effects. To understand these different functions it is interesting to investigate the content of the cuticle. The objectives with this study were to investigate and identify the triterpenes in the apple cuticle. The content of triterpenes was also compared between apples produced according to two different cultivation methods, integrated production (IP) and organic production. In the first experiment that was conducted, a method was developed and in the second experiment effects of two different cultivation practices were compared. The results from the second experiment indicated that apples produced according to IP had a larger content of triterpenes compared with organically produced apples. The significance of the difference between the two cultivation methods was hard to evaluate due to the small selection of samples.
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