Abstract:The fruits of three precocious peach cultivars, ‘Chunguang’, ‘Yanguang’, and ‘Qiannianhong’ were used to study changes in the content of C6 alcohols and aldehydes during coloring and maturity periods. Headspace solid-phase microextraction (HS-SPME) and gas chromatography/mass spectrometry (GC/MS) were used to determine the content of C6 alcohols and aldehydes in the nectarine fruits. The results showed that the main C6 volatile compounds included hexanal, trans-2-hexenal, hexanol, trans-2-hexen-1-ol, and cis-3-hexen-1-ol. Additionally, the content of C6 volatile compounds in nectarine fruits were significantly different during different stages of maturity. The content of trans-2-hexenal was the highest, averaging 331.0 and 231.6 μg/L during the coloring and maturity periods, respectively. On the other hand, the content of cis-3-hexen-1-ol was the lowest, averaging 11.1 and 5.5 μg/L during the coloring and maturity periods, respectively. ‘Qiannianhong’ contained relatively high levels of hexanal, trans-2-hexenal, and hexanol, which were significantly higher than those in ‘Chunguang’ and ‘Yanguang’. The C6 aldehydes showed relatively high odor activity values (OVAs) during the two periods, contributing greatly to the aroma of nectarine fruits. On the other hand, the OAVs of C6 alcohols were relatively low, showing less contribution to the aroma. Thus, the content of C6 volatile compounds in nectarine fruits significantly decreased during the maturity period and also differed between different cultivars and different stages of development.
