ASHS 2025 Conference

As consumer preferences and needs for strawberries have become increasingly diverse, various strawberry cultivars have been developed in Korea. Although the ‘Seolhyang’ (SH) cultivar still occupies the highest proportion in the strawberry industry, the proportion of strawberry cultivars has unique characteristics, including bigger size, higher ascorbic acid content, or unique color. One of the distinctive cultivars recently gaining attention is a white-pink colored strawberry known as ‘Cinderella’ (CD). Thus, the objective of this study aimed to evaluate the metabolic variations in secondary metabolites between SH and CD cultivars, based on the pigmentation of the fruit peel, which could be 0%, 50%, 75%, or 100%, following a 3-day cold storage period. The fully developed strawberry had a higher fresh weight and fruit diameter in CD than in SH cultivar. The peel color variables, including lightness, yellowness, and hue angle, were gradually decreased with fruit pigmentation. The redness of the peel increased rapidly along with fruit pigmentation in SH, while that of CD showed only a slight increase. The ethylene production rate indicated higher values in SH than in CD during fruit pigmentation. Fruit firmness gradually decreased while soluble solids content (SSC) increased along with fruit pigmentation, regardless of strawberry cultivars. The anthocyanin analysis revealed that the SH cultivar had notable levels of pelargonidin-3-O-glucoside, pelargonidin-3-(6”-malonylglucoside), and cyanidin-3-O-glucoside, which contributed to fruit pigmentation. In contrast, pelargonidin-3-O-glucoside was only detected in the CD cultivar. Based on the volatile organic compounds (VOCs) profiling, a total of 74 VOCs were detected, including 26 esters, 14 alcohols, 12 aldehydes, 9 ketones, 5 terpenes, and 3 acids. In SH cultivar, (E)-2-hexenal, (E)-nerolidol, methyl hexanoate, hexanoic acid, and linalool were major VOCs. On the other hand, methyl hexanoate, ethyl hexanoate, (E)-2-hexenal, mesifurane, and (E)-nerolidol were the main VOCs in the CD cultivar. Therefore, the results indicate that the profiles and levels of anthocyanins and VOCs were differently regulated during the pigmentation of strawberry fruit between SH and CD cultivars.