Changes in Yield-Related Traits, Phytochemical Composition, and Antioxidant Activity of Pepper (Capsicum annuum) Depending on Its Variety, Fruit Position, and Ripening Stage

Abstract

The relationship between fruit position, ripening stage, and variety has not been well studied in pepper plants. To understand the interaction of these factors, a diversity of phytochemical traits as well as antioxidant activity were investigated with agronomic traits in eleven hot pepper varieties collected from the upper and lower parts of the plant and harvested at three maturity stages (green, orange, and red). Capsaicin content (CAP) showed a relatively high genetic effect; on the contrary, total phenolic content (TPC), total flavonoid content (TFC), and antioxidant activity were more affected by the ripening stage and fruit position. The CAP values ranged from 0.29 (‘FKbM’) to 0.77 (‘Bka’) mg CAP equivalents g−1 DW. The ripening stage was the predominant factor for TPC, TFC, DPPH, and FRAP. There was no significant interaction between A × FP, A × RS, and FP × RS for all agro-morphological fruit traits. Variety, fruit position, and ripening stage effects are more significant than all interactions calculated. Lower fruit positions in all samples showed a maximum fruit size, whereas phytochemical traits and yield per plant were relevant in the upper parts, and Phytochemical traits and yield per plant were significantly correlated. From PCA and cluster analysis, all varieties showed the highest biochemical and antioxidant levels with moderate fruit size, except the ‘Bel’ variety that showed the smallest fruit traits with high yields, and the ‘FKbM’ and ‘FKbK’ varieties that showed the highest fruit size but low yields. This study supplies information to identify interesting cultivars with considerable levels of bioactive and phytochemical metabolites, which is useful for breeding programs of novel varieties.

Characterization of leucine aminopeptidase (LAP) activity in sweet pepper fruits during ripening and its inhibition by nitration and reducing events

“…On the contrary, the ripening process of pepper fruits involves many changes at the phenotypic, transcriptomic, proteomic, and metabolomic levels, and its big genome size, in comparison to other Solanaceae, makes its analysis complex (Dyachenko et al 2020 ; Razo-Mendivil et al 2021 ; Esposito et al 2022 ; Kovács et al 2022 ; Del Giúdice et al 2023 ). Recently, “omic” approaches have been carried out to study specific aspects of the ripening process (Chiaiese et al 2019 ; Dubey et al 2019 ; Zuo et al 2019 ; Lopez-Ortiz et al 2021 ; Rödiger et al 2021 ; Momo et al 2022 ; Villa-Rivera et al 2022 ; Song et al 2022 ; Liu et al 2023 ; Wang et al 2024 ) which are dependent on the variety, environmental growth conditions, fruit position, and ripening stage (Ribes-Moya et al 2020 ; Jang et al 2022 ; Lahbib et al 2023 ; Guijarro-Real et al 2023 ; Islam et al 2023 ). Despite the increase in information on the ripening of pepper fruits, to our knowledge, there is no data on the LAP in this process.…”

Drying Kinetics and Quality Attributes of Solar-Dried Red Peppers: A Comparative Study with Traditional and Industrial Methods

“…where Abs control represents the absorbance of the control and Abs sample represents the absorbance of the sample [31]. Logarithmic MR = a exp −kt + c [24] Two-term model…”

“…The total volume of the mixtures was adjusted to 50 mL with deionized water and incubated in a dark location for 60 minutes. The absorbance of solutions was measured at 765 nm, and the final results were expressed as gallic acid equivalents per gram of crude extract, utilizing the equation derived from the gallic acid standard curve (40-400 μg/mL) [31].…”