Carotenoid content in <i>Prunus armeniaca</i> L. apricot fruits depending on the extraction method

In the middle of the 20th century, specialists of the Tsitsin Main Moscow Botanical Garden of the Russian Academy of Sciences collected a valuable apricot gene pool characterized by high diversity and winter hardiness. From this gene pool, L.A. Kramarenko carried out selection work to develop winter-hardy apricot varieties, such as Aisberg, Vodoley, Guiani, Lel’, Tsarsky and others, which were included in the State Register of Breeding Achievements of the Russian Federation. The use of these varieties in further selective breeding requires information on their carotenoid content. In this work, we determine carotenoids in apricot (Prunus armeniaca L., Rosaceae) fruits of Moscow breeding varieties Aisberg, Vodoley, Guiani, Lel’, Tsarsky and Zachat’ievsky. We employed different extraction methods of plant raw materials, contributing to the optimal extraction of carotenoids from apricot fruits. Extraction was performed with hexane, 96% ethanol at room temperature, and EtOH heated to 60°C (water bath) for 40 min. The highest carotenoid content was observed in Lel’ (31.73 mg%) and Vodoley (31.77 mg%) varieties, while the lowest content was observed in the Zachat’ievsky sample (11.93 mg%). The application of multiple solvents increases the reliability of determining carotenoids in plants for computational and experimental studies. The discovered range of their content can be used for description of promising forms during breeding works. In this way, new and beneficial for health varieties may emerge.