THE RESULTS OF THE STUDY OF THE COMPONENTS OF ANTIOXIDANT ACTIVITY IN CHERRY FRUITS OF THE VNIISPK BIORESOURCE COLLECTION

Cherry is a culture whose fruits contain biologically active substances, ascorbic acid and phenolic compounds with antioxidant activity, causing therapeutic and preventive properties. The objects of research were the cherry cultivars of the bioresource collection of the Russian Research Institute of Fruit Crop Breeding (VNIISPK): 25 introduced ones and 38 cultivars bred by the Institute. The goal of the studies was to give the comparative assessment of cherry cultivars of the VNIISPK bioresource collection for the accumulation of biologically active substances in fruits and to identify genotypes with a high level of antioxidant properties. The content of ascorbic acid and phenolic compounds (anthocyanins, catechins, leukoanthocyanins and their sum) were determined in the fruits. The average values, diversity limits and variation intervals for each component for both groups of the cultivars were calculated. Genotypes that are of interest for obtaining fresh vitamin products, and sources of high content of biologically active substances have been identified for further use in cherry breeding for improved chemical composition of fruits. When distributing cultivars into groups according to the content of anthocyanins in fruits, it was found that in most cherry cultivars the content of anthocyanins ranged from 100.0 to 300.0 mg/100 g – 64% in the introduced cultivars and 60.5% in the VNIISPK breeding cultivars, while 24.0 and 31.6% of the cultivars, respectively, accumulated more than 300.0 mg/100 g. A number of the cultivars were identified according to the complex of traits that determined the antioxidant activity of the culture: Vladimirskaya and Rastorguevskaya (introduced cultivars); Antratsitovaya, Businka, Vereya, Veteranka, Grechanka, Orleya, Podarok Uchitelyam, Rovesnitsa, Studencheskaya, Kapelka, Kupina, Tikhonovskaya and Shokoladnitsa (VNIISPK breeding cultivars).