(115h) Characterization of Volatile Compounds of Peach Fruit by HS/SPME and GC/MS: Puerto Rico New Cultivars

Some cultivars of peach [Prunus persica (L.) Batsch] with low chill requirement, were developed for the South zone of the state of Florida, which were introduced to Puerto Rico in 2002. In Adjuntas Puerto Rico, at 594.4 meters above sea level, four cultivars were adapted to the local conditions successfully: "UFSun, Flordaglo, Flordaprince and Tropicbeauty?. To compare the peach aroma of these new cultivars of Puerto Rico, a new project was started in the Environmental Research Laboratory of the Chemistry Department of RUM using the head-space-solid phase micro-extraction and gas chromatography/mass spectrometry (HS/SPME and GC/MS) techniques. This is the first study to report detection of the volatile compounds in peaches form Puerto Rico. The first step was a screening of the HS/SPME and GC/MS parameters. The method allowed analyzing a wide range of aroma volatile compounds of the pulp and the skin in this peaches and also compares these results with commercial peaches from Chile. The pulp and skin of Puerto Rico new cultivars peaches have different aroma compounds. The UFSun cultivar had more total chemical volatile compounds than the ?Tropicbeauty'. The peaches pulp and skin contained volatile compounds such as esters, ketones, alcohols, aldehydes and others, 65% of the compounds were tentatively identified with a match quality over 80% in the pulp and also in the peach skin. Most of the peaches pulp and skin compounds, in Tropicbeauty and UFSun, are the same but have different abundance which formed the complex chemical substances that compose their aroma.