High-Throughput Phenolic Profiling in Virgin Olive Oil Using Fourier Transform Near-Infrared Spectroscopy: A Tool for...

Phenolic compounds determine virgin olive oil (VOO) quality, health benefits, and cultivar characterization, but routine analysis by high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) is slow and unsuitable for large genetic studies. This study evaluated Fourier transform near-infrared spectroscopy (FT-NIR) as a high-throughput alternative for VOO phenolic profiling. A three-year data set covering broad genetic and environmental variability, including cultivars from the World Olive Germplasm Bank and breeding genotypes from Córdoba (Spain), was used to calibrate Partial Least-Squares models. An independent data set from four cultivars across four environments enabled external validation and broad-sense heritability estimation. FT-NIR models showed strong predictive performance for total phenols and major secoiridoids, with R² values of 0.62-0.88 and Range Error Ratio (RER) values above 10. Variance analysis indicated genotype-driven variation for ligstroside aglycone and environmental effects for other phenols. FT-NIR estimates closely matched laboratory results, confirming its value for phenolic evaluation in olive breeding programs.