Fruit quality evaluation of different mulberry varieties

Area of Science:

• Horticulture and Plant Breeding
• Nutritional Science
• Food Chemistry

Background:

• Fruit quality is crucial for cultivar selection in plant breeding.
• Mulberry fruits offer rich nutritional and bioactive compounds with health benefits.
• Scientific evaluation methods are needed to identify superior mulberry varieties.

Purpose of the Study:

• To analyze and compare fruit appearance, nutritional quality, functional components, and antioxidant capacity across 21 mulberry varieties.
• To identify core quality evaluation indices using Principal Component Analysis (PCA).
• To comprehensively evaluate mulberry fruit quality using the Entropy Weight Method and Grey Relational Analysis (GRA).

Main Methods:

• Analysis of fruit appearance, nutritional content, functional components, and antioxidant capacity.
• Principal Component Analysis (PCA) for identifying key quality indicators.
• Entropy Weight Method for weighting indicators and Grey Relational Analysis (GRA) for comprehensive quality assessment.

Main Results:

• Specific varieties excelled in appearance ('Ri Ben Guo Sang', 'Hong Guo 1'), nutritional quality ('Tang 10'), functional components ('Lv Shen Zi', 'Hei Zhen Zhu'), and antioxidant capacity ('Jiang Mi Guo Sang', 'Hong Guo 1').
• PCA identified seven principal components explaining 88.424% of the variance in fruit quality traits.
• GRA provided a comprehensive quality evaluation, with correlation degrees ranging from 0.406 to 0.817.

Conclusions:

• Varieties such as 'Da 10', 'Feng Guo Sang', 'He Lan Sang', 'Lv Shen Zi', and 'Ri Ben Guo Sang' demonstrate superior overall fruit quality and nutritional value.
• The study provides a scientific basis for selecting and developing high-quality mulberry fruit varieties.
• Integrated statistical approaches (PCA, Entropy Weight Method, GRA) effectively evaluated complex fruit quality traits.