Evaluation of some quince (Cydonia oblonga Mill.) cultivars in terms of jam processing

Quince (Cydonia oblonga Mill.) species has a share of 3.7% in Turkey’s pome fruit production. Quince fruit has been generally consumed as jam/gel/marmalade and dessert, or fresh fruit. In Turkey, there are a lot of quince cultivars and types. It has been known that quince fruit has rich in health benefits. In this research we investigated the effect of jam processing on health benefit compounds in six different quince cultivars and we tried to select the most suitable cultivar for jam processing industry based on jam color and amounts of phenolic compounds of jams in two consecutive years. For this reason, analysis of phenolic compounds and color measurements as hue (h*) and chroma (C*) were done in samples taken from either fresh fruit tissue or jams. The amount of these health benefits significantly changed among cultivars (P<0.05). We observed that jam processing caused significant decrease in phenolic compounds and C* values for all cultivars in both years. A color change from yellow to orange-light brown was observed during jam processing in ‘Ekmek’ and ‘Yerkoy’ cultivars for both years. Overall, within these cultivars, fruit of ‘Limon’ were evaluated as the most suitable material for jam processing and keeping of health benefits. This was followed by ‘Kalecik’, ‘Esme’, ‘Yerkoy’ and ‘Çukurgobek’ cultivars, respectively. According to the results of two years, the lowest phenolic compounds was found in jams from ‘Ekmek’ cultivar, and this cultivar does not meet the requirements of jam processing.