Chemometric approach based characterization and selection of mid-early cauliflower for bioactive compounds and...

The present study was aimed to analyse bioactive compounds (total phenolics, ascorbic acid and sinigrin) and antioxidant activity in 14 mid-early cauliflower genotypes. Significant differences (pb 0.05) were observed among the genotypes for all bioactive compounds and antioxidant activity. Total phenolics content of curd were ranged from 20.36 to 48.93 mg gallic acid equivalent (GAE) 100 g^-1 fresh weight (FW) which showed 2.5 times variation. The ascorbic acid content was maximum in DC522 (88.53 mg 100 g^-1 FW) followed by Pusa Sharad (65.64 mg 100 g^-1 FW) while minimum in DC310 (39.62 65.64 mg 100 g^-1 FW). Wide variation was observed for cupric reducing antioxidant capacity and ferric reducing antioxidant power ranging from 9.04 to 20.83 mg GAE 100 g^-1 FW and 13.11 to 26.31 mg GAE 100 g^-1 FW, respectively. Sinigrin was found to be highest in DC306 (39.50 µmol 100 g^-1 FW) for leaf and in DC326 (36.93 µmol 100 g^-1 FW) for curd sample. The cauliflower genotypes were classified based on chemometric approaches namely principal component analysis (PCA) and agglomerative hierarchical clustering (AHC). The first two principal components (PC1 and PC2) explained 50.62% and 23.28% of total variance, respectively. The AHC as revealed by heat map classified cauliflower genotypes into four main groups based on measured traits. The information is useful for developing varieties and/or hybrids rich in bioactive compounds and antioxidant activity.