Influence of growing area and harvest date on the organic acid composition of olive fruits from Gemlik variety

Organic acids (oxalic, citric, galacturonic, tartaric, malic, lactic and succinic) contents of Gemlik variety olive fruits from five different cultivation areas of South Anatolia (Turkey), harvested in six collection dates (September, October and November of crop years 2006 and 2007), were determined by HPLC/DAD. Citric acid was the major compound (∼45%), followed by succinic (19%) and galacturonic acids (∼16%). The olive fruits of Antalya location showed the lowest and Karaman, Alanya and Hatay locations had the highest levels of total organic acids, especially on the early and late harvest. Significant interactions between “location”, “harvest date” and “crop year” were found, regarding the concentrations of citric, lactic, oxalic, tartaric and malic acid (3-way and 2-way interactions), which means that the effect of one factor (e.g. “location”) on an acid's concentration is not constant across the levels of the other factor. For succinic and galacturonic acids's concentrations, all interactions between the considered factors were statistically significant, except the 2-way interaction between “harvest date” and “crop year” which was no significant, meaning that the effect of factor “harvest date” on the succinic and/or on the galacturonic acid's concentrations does not vary significantly from one level of factor “crop year” to other. Significant mean differences were found in the concentrations of individual organic acids according to harvest time, which indicated generally a decline as harvest date moved on or no significant changes in some cases. Our results showed that rainfall and altitude of the location seemed to have more marked effects than temperature, on the levels of some organic acids such as malic, oxalic and succinic acids. The grouping of locations formed in Principal Component Analysis were quite different according to crop years, as for the first crop year (2006) “oxalic, citric, tartaric and succinic” and “lactic, malic, galacturonic” acids were the two groups of variables mainly responsible for discrimination, while for the following crop year (2007) “galacturonic, tartaric, oxalic, lactic”; “succinic, citric” and “malic” acids were the three groups responsible for the formation of clusters.

► Citric acid was the most abundant organic acid present in olive fruits.
► Oxalic, succinic and malic acids were higher in locations which had lower rainfall and higher altitude.
► There could be positive or negative relationships between oxalic, citric and tartaric acid contents of olive fruits and precipitation.
► PCA scores suggested that the grouping of locations according to the organic acid concentrations of were highly influenced by the crop year.