Improvement of the Physico-Chemical Properties, Nutritional, and Antioxidant Compounds of Pomegranate Fruit cv. ‘Wonderful’ Using Integrated Fertilization

This study comprised of five different integrated fertilizers of calcium nitrate Ca(NO3)2 with ammonium sulphate (NH4)2SO4 ratios (0%:100%, 10%:90%, 20%:80%, 30%:70%, and 40%:60%) to enhance the physico-chemical properties, and the antioxidant and nutritional compounds of pomegranate fruits cv. ‘Wonderful’. The results discovered that the application of Ca(NO3)2:(NH4)2SO4 in different ratios significantly affected all measured parameters. Among integrated fertilizers, the 30%:70% combination showed an increment of 10.8% in fruit weight, 2.9% in fruit length, 11.8% in fruit volume, and 7.0% in fruit diameter. Similarly, total soluble solids, vitamin C, anthocyanin, total sugars, and reduced sugars, were also increased by 11.2%, 14.6%, 20.2%, 7.4%, and 5.2%, respectively. Likewise, values of both color variations from green to red (a*) and from blue to yellow (b*), and chroma, were also increased by 13.8%, 16.6%, and 14.4%, respectively. Moreover, the application of Ca(NO3)2:(NH4)2SO4 at a ratio of 40%:60% showed 25.1% decrease in titratable acidity, and 45.4% and 27.0% increase in maturity index and peel luminosity, respectively. Additionally, the 30%:70% combination showed an increment of 30.9% in total phenolic content, 70.5% in total tannin content, and 43.6% in total flavonoid content. Additionally, it showed 25.8% and 1.7% decrease in pH and moisture content, respectively. Moreover, P, K, Ca, Mg, Na, Fe, Mn, Zn, Cu, and Ni in fruit increased by different increments by application of the 30%:70% with an increasing range of 28% to 175%. A non-reducing sugar increase was observed at an application of Ca(NO3)2:(NH4)2SO4 at a ratio of 20%:80% by 47.0%. The findings of this study suggest that using calcium nitrate with ammonium sulphate at a ratio of 30%:70%, using the fertigation approach during the growth season, could be a safe, natural, and novel method for the pomegranate cv. ‘Wonderful’ to improve fruit quality, and its amount of antioxidants—specifically, phenolics, vitamin C, anthocyanin, and fruit minerals—with health benefits at harvest

Development, characterization and use of genomic SSR markers for assessment of genetic diversity in some Saudi date palm (Phoenix dactylifera L.) cultivars

Background: The present study was undertaken towards the development of SSR markers and assessing genetic relationships among 32 date palm (Phoenix dactylifera L.) representing common cultivars grown in different geographical regions in Saudi Arabia. Results: Ninety-three novel simple sequence repeat markers were developed and screened for their ability to detect polymorphism in date palm. Around 71% of genomic SSRs were dinucleotide, 25% tri, 3% tetra and 1% penta nucleotide motives. Twenty-two primers generated a total of 91 alleles with a mean of 4.14 alleles per locus and 100% polymorphism percentage. A 0.595 average polymorphic information content and 0.662 primer discrimination power values were recorded. The expected and observed heterozygosities were 0.676 and 0.763 respectively. Pair-wise similarity values ranged from 0.06 to 0.89 and the overall cultivars averaged 0.41. The UPGMA cluster analysis recovered by principal coordinate analysis illustrated that cultivars tend to group according to their class of maturity, region of cultivation, and fruit color. Analysis of molecular variations (AMOVA) revealed that genetic variation among and within cultivars were 27% and 73%, respectively according to geographical distribution of cultivars. Conclusions: The developed microsatellite markers are additional values to date palm characterization tools that can be used by researchers in population genetics, cultivar identification as well as genetic resource exploration and management. The tested cultivars exhibited a significant amount of genetic diversity and could be suitable for successful breeding program. Genomic sequences generated from this study are available at the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI), Sequence Read Archive (Accession numbers. LIBGSS_039019)