Preliminary evaluation of breeding perspectives of Ukrainian sweet cherry cultivars: nutraceutical properties and self-incompatibility

Stone fruits consumption is expected to rise worldwide, since consumers pay more and more attention for their health. Therefore, natural foods having enhanced functional properties may be popular in the future. The increased consumption of fresh fruits has several health-promoting effects. Because of their high antioxidant capacity, fresh fruit reduce the risk of several degenerative diseases (i.a. cancer, stroke, cardiovascular diseases) (Liu, 2003; Scalzo et al., 2005; Dauchet & Dallongeville, 2008). Among stone fruits, sweet cherry (Prunus avium L.) is one of the most popular fruit containing considerable levels of ascorbic acid and polyphenolics (Serrano et al., 2005; Usenik et al., 2008). One of the most important polyphenolics in sweet cherry is anthocyanin. Fruits’ anthocyanin content can be easily assessed from the red colour intensity of fruit peel and flesh. Some cultivars produce dark red or black fruits due to high contents of anthocyanins, while others contain only limited quantities from this compound. Comparing the antioxidant power of cultivars with differently coloured fruits may increase the popularity of formerly important traditional cultivars. Most commercial sweet cherry cultivars are selfincompatible, which require another cultivar with different Sgenotype for economically acceptable fruit set. Currently, 41 cross-incompatibility groups (CIG) are known (I-XLI) (Gisbert et al., 2008; Marchese et al., 2007; Schuster et al., 2007; Stanys et al., 2008; Tobutt et al. 2004). The members of such CIGs will not give eligible fruit set if interplanted in an orchard without another compatible cultivar. Different lengths of both introns in the S-RNase alleles have been successfully used to identify S-alleles in sweet cherry genotypes using polymerase chain reaction (PCR) (Sonneveld et al., 2001, 2003;Wiersma et al., 2001). Sweet cherry displays great phenotypic and genetic diversity in Eastern Europe including Ukraine. Some cultivars were traditionally popular in the member states of the former Soviet Union (‘Tavrichanka’, ‘Melitopolskaya’ or ‘Valeriy Chkalov’ etc.) and hence were intensively used in breeding programs during the past decades. Since many fruit characteristics of these cultivars are still unknown (e.g. anthocyanin content, antioxidant properties), their inclusion into modern breeding programs may hold opportunities. In the present study we characterized some nutraceutical properties of eight Ukrainian cultivars and compared them to Preliminary evaluation of breeding perspectives of Ukrainian sweet cherry cultivars: nutraceutical properties and self-incompatibility