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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Hortic.
Sec. Viticulture, Pomology, and Soft Fruits
Volume 3 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fhort.2024.1425366
This article is part of the Research Topic Citriculture: Sustaining Quality Production View all 3 articles

New insights in the flavor and chemistry of Huanglongbing tolerant Citrus hybrids with/without Poncirus trifoliata in their pedigree

Provisionally accepted
Kristen A. Jeffries Kristen A. Jeffries 1Zhen Fan Zhen Fan 2Xiuxiu Sun Xiuxiu Sun 3Gabriela M. Olmedo Gabriela M. Olmedo 1Wei Zhao Wei Zhao 1Matthew Mattia Matthew Mattia 1Ed Stover Ed Stover 1Elizabeth Baldwin Elizabeth Baldwin 1John A. Manthey John A. Manthey 1Andrew Breksa Andrew Breksa 4Jinhe Bai Jinhe Bai 1*Anne Plotto Anne Plotto 1*
  • 1 U.S. Horticultural Research Laboratory, Agricultural Research Service (USDA), Fort Pierce, United States
  • 2 Gulf Coast Research and Education Center, Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences, University of Florida, Wimauma, Florida, United States
  • 3 Daniel K. Inouye U.S. Pacific Basin Agricultural Research Center, Agricultural Research Service (USDA), Hilo, Hawaii, United States
  • 4 Western Regional Research Center, Agricultural Research Service (USDA), Albany, California, United States

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Citrus hybrids with Poncirus trifoliata L. Raf. introgression have gained interest due to their tolerance to Huanglongbing (HLB), a devastating disease for Florida citrus agriculture. While these hybrids inherit disease tolerance from P. trifoliata, they sometimes also suffer from undesirable offflavors. A selection of thirteen genotypes were harvested over the 2020-2021 and 2021-2022 seasons. Their juices were evaluated by a trained sensory panel and were comprehensively analyzed for their chemical makeup, including soluble solids content (SSC), titratable acidity (TA), volatiles, flavonoids and limonoids. Overall, along with the commercial orange cultivars 'Valencia' and 'Hamlin', the HLB-tolerant Poncirus hybrid 'US SunDragon,' and the mandarin hybrids Sugar Belle ® , FF-5-51-2, and 'US Superna' had positive citrus flavor quality. Esters, some sesquiterpenes, along with flavonoids, eriocitrin and quercetin-3-(3R-glucosylrutinoside), were positively correlated with orange flavor while β-ionone and eucalyptol were highly abundant in the mandarins. The flavonoid linarin, was more abundant in Poncirus hybrids with off-flavors than in the Poncirus hybrid 'US SunDragon', having high orange flavor. Two mandarin hybrids, FF-5-6-36 and FTP-6- 32-67, were not bitter at harvest, but the juice exhibited delayed bitterness after storage at -20 °C, which was associated with significant increases of limonin, nomilin, naringenin, and prunin. Interestingly, during freezer storage, a newly identified flavonoid in citrus, tricin-C-hexoside, increased dramatically across all of the genotypes. The identification of disease-tolerant hybrids with satisfactory flavor quality at juicing as well as after storage where delayed bitterness may develop, has great significance for future breeding efforts for fresh fruit or for use in stand-alone juice/juice blends.

    Keywords: Citrus ×P. trifoliata, Juice flavor, Flavonoids, LC-MS/MS, GC-MS, sensory, HLB

    Received: 29 Apr 2024; Accepted: 16 Aug 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Jeffries, Fan, Sun, Olmedo, Zhao, Mattia, Stover, Baldwin, Manthey, Breksa, Bai and Plotto. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence:
    Jinhe Bai, U.S. Horticultural Research Laboratory, Agricultural Research Service (USDA), Fort Pierce, United States
    Anne Plotto, U.S. Horticultural Research Laboratory, Agricultural Research Service (USDA), Fort Pierce, United States

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.