From the report of Walid Abidi, Celia M. Cantín, Sergio Jiménez, Rosa Giménez, María Ángeles Moreno and Yolanda Gogorcena “Influence of antioxidant compounds, total sugars and genetic background on the chilling injury susceptibility of a non-melting peach (Prunus persica (L.) Batsch) progeny“, published in Wiley library.
To identify genotypes with good organoleptic properties, antioxidant-rich content and low susceptibility to chilling injury (CI), fruits from 130 peach cultivars were studied. Major symptoms of CI developed at 5 °C, such as leatheriness, flesh browning, bleeding and loss of flavor, were evaluated. Six genotypes with high total phenolics, relative antioxidant capacity, flavonoids and total sugars were selected. The progeny also showed variability for all evaluated CI symptoms, and 16 genotypes showed considerably lower susceptibility to CI. After 2 weeks of cold storage, leatheriness and bleeding were the main CI symptoms observed.
The conclusion is that it was possible to find varieties with high phenolic concentration and relatively low or intermediate CI susceptibility (22, 33, 68, 80, 81, 96 and 120). However, the correlations observed between CI and phenolic contents highlight their potential influence on susceptibility to internal browning.