Influence of Ripening Time on Fruit Chemcal Composition of Two Blue Honeysuckle Cultigens

The aim of 3-year experiment was to evaluate quality and chemical composition of blue honeysuckle berries cultivar ‘Czarna’ and non-specified seedling “N” as dependent on time of ripening. The results obtained showed that berries harvested later were bigger but less firm. Furthermore, an increase of soluble solids content was observed in fruit of both cultigens at the end of harvest (for seedling “N” from 11 to 13.5% and for ‘Czarna’ from 9.8% to 12.6%). On the other hand, for late-harvested berries of both cultigens 20% decrease of titratable acidity and vitamin C was noticed. In berries of seedling “N” at the beginning of harvest 232 mg 100 g of total polyphenols was determined, whereas the late ripening fruit contained 284 mg 100 g of total polyphenols. Similar relation was observed in ‘Czarna’ berries (an increase from 164 mg 100 g to 221 mg 100 g). The berries of late harvest contained more anthocyanins (167 mg 100 g in ‘Czarna’ and 227 mg 100 g in seedling “N”) as compared to early collected ones (122 and 173 mg 100 g for, ‘Czarna’ and “N”, respectively). Hydroxycinnamic acids content varied from 37.0 to 29.3 mg 100 g , respectively, for early and late collected berries of seedling “N” and from 22.3 mg 100 g to 26.6 mg 100 g for early and late harvested berries of ‘Czarna’. Among flavonols, quercetin-3-