What is the calcium and zinc content in apples and whether there are regional differences.

Calcium, zinc and other mineral elements are an indispensable part of the human healthy diet, the Chinese Academy of Sciences Wuhan Botanical Garden fruit tree molecular breeding discipline group assistant researcher Liao Wei, under the guidance of researcher Han Yupeng, the use of flame atomic absorption method in the apple resources mature fruit calcium, zinc content was measured.
results found that the difference in calcium and zinc content between apple varieties was obvious, the difference between calcium varieties was 23 times, while zinc was as high as 95 times, the calcium concentration was similar between cultivated and wild species, but the concentration of zinc in wild apples was significantly higher than that in cultivated species, and there was no significant difference in calcium and zinc concentration between apple fruits of different geographical origins.
In addition, the concentration of calcium and zinc in apple fruits was highest in the fruit's young fruit period, significantly reduced during the puffing period, and the concentration of calcium in mature period showed a slight downward trend, while the zinc concentration showed different variation patterns.
the study analyzed the variation of calcium and zinc accumulation in apple resource fruits for the first time, and the results provided a theoretical basis for the genetic improvement of apple mineral nutrition.
the project has been funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China and the results have been published online in the international academic journal Journal of Food and Agricultural Sciences.
the original paper: Title: Journal of The Science of Food and Agriculture Keywords: Malus; mineral nutrition; fruit features; FAAS Abstract BACKGROUND Apple is one of the staple fruits worldwide, which are a good source of mineral nutrients. However, little is known about genetic variation for mineral nutrition in apple germplasm. In this study, we report on the assessment of calcium and contents in mature fruits of 378 apple cultivars and 39 wild relatives. Minerals was quantified using flame atomic absorption spectroscopy (FAAS).RESULTS Both calcium and zinc great showed. Overall, wild fruits were greatly richer zinc in than than foreth fruits, whilst the average centralized of calcium was similar to between foreth and wild fruits. The difference in zinc central between wild and education fruits may be an indirect result of the people selection on fruit features when apple domestication. Moreover, calcium focus in fruit showed a des trend throughout fruit development of apple, whilst zinc in fruit displayed a complex variation pattern in the late stages of fruit development.CONCULSION The finding of a wild genetic variation for fruit calcium and zinc product in apple germaplsm can be helpful for future research on genetic dissection and plion of calcium and zinc in apple fruit.