In an effort to combat citrus greening disease, which has devastated Florida citrus agriculture, the USDA, Agricultural Research Service (ARS) is studying a collection of hybrids showing disease tolerance. These citrus hybrids are introgressed with Poncirus trifoliata and are part of a unique breeding program that has used P. trifoliata as a source of disease and cold tolerance. P. trifoliata has an undesirable flavor, however, after several generations of crossing with Citrus, some hybrids have acceptable flavor. In order to identify hybrids with disease resistance and acceptable flavors, sensory and chemical data were collected. Citrus juice is a very complex matrix, several variables were analyzed for around 50 hybrids with multiple harvests over 5 years. With over two hundred harvest/genotype combinations, the use of tree-based modeling has identified key components for predicting orange or mandarin flavors. Compounds with strong predictive value for orange in comparison to mandarin flavor included most esters, (E)-2-hexenal, carvone and sesquiterpenes. Soluble solids over titratable acidity ratio, as well as sucrose, were strong predictors for mandarin flavor. Additionally, a broadly targeted analysis of flavonoids and limonoids adds to our understanding of undesirable bitterness in orange juice. Taken all together, large data sets like the one described herein, will lead to the selection of disease-tolerant hybrids with good flavor quality for a stand-alone variety or for use in orange-like juice blends and a better understanding of chemical compounds important for orange flavor.

Five-year study of flavor and sensory evaluation of HLB-tolerant citrus hybrids

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