Agronomic, nutraceutical and molecular variability of feijoa (Acca sellowiana (O. Berg) Burret) germplasm

• Agronomic and nutraceutical traits were used to estimate diversity.
• Genetic diversity among feijoa cultivars was evaluated using SRAP markers.
• High phenotypic diversity among the cultivars was detected.
• Phenotypic and SRAP markers analyses are effective to estimate feijoa diversity.

During three years of investigations (2011–2013), 12 feijoa (Acca sellowiana (O. Berg) Burret) cultivars fruits were characterised in terms of genetic, physico-chemical, nutraceutical and sensory properties. The physical-chemical, nutritional and sensory features were also correlated with a sequence-related amplified polymorphism (SRAP) analysis to assess the existence of a possible genetic relationships among the 12 cultivars and quality traits. SRAP analysis revealed genetic diversity among the 12 feijoa cultivars, this finding have been confirmed by the pomological, nutraceutical and sensory traits. A high antioxidant activity and a considerable amount of bioactive compounds, especially phenols, flavonoids and ascorbic acid, were detected. A higher level of phenols was detected in Triumph (251 ± 25.9 mg GAE/100 g FW) and Smith (226.6 ± 9.53 mg GAE/100 g FW), the latter of which was also richer in ascorbic acid (42.9 ± 0.63 mg AA 100 g−1 FW) and flavonoids (40 ± 0.88 mg CTE 100 g−1 FW) compared to the remaining cultivars. Cluster analyses and principal component analysis made it possible to establish similarities among the cultivars depending on their quality and sensorial characteristics.The Mantel's correlation coefficient of SRAP marker and morphological-qualitative-sensorial traits was 0.495 reflecting that the SRAP marker-based clustering of feijoa cultivars showed similarity to the dendrogram topologies of the morphological-qualitative-sensorial trait-based clustering, although there were some differences in the positioning of some feijoa cultivars in the clusters. This study indicated that the combination of both SRAP marker and morphological trait analysis is more informative for a refined identification and characterisation of plant varieties.