MULTIVARIATE ANALYSIS OF THE SENSORY AND PHYSICAL PARAMETERS OF DIFFERENT GENOTYPES OF CASHEW APPLE

Cashew is a fruit of special nutritional and economic interest, ensuring income in semi-arid tropical regions, especially during periods of drought. To increase productivity and the quality of cashew nut and cashew apple, improved clones have been developed in Brazil. This work aimed to identify cashew apples with desirable sensory characteristics, helping the breeders in selecting suitable fruits for fresh consumption or juice processing. Ten clones were evaluated: CCP06, CCP09, CCP76, CCP1001, BRS189, BRS226, BRS265, BRS274, BRS275, and Embrapa50. The sensory profile was determined by QDA with a trained panel who evaluated ten descriptors related to aroma, flavor, taste, texture and mouth feel. Acceptance tests for appearance (global appearance, color, size and shape) were also carried out, and physical characteristics of weight, size (length, apical and basal diameters) and color were determined to investigate the drivers of appearance preferences. Different chemometric approaches were performed to enhance the cashew apples variability based on genotypes. Each matrix was imported by the PLS ToolboxTM program for multivariate analysis by Principal Component Analysis (PCA) and analysis by Partial Least Square Discriminant (PLS-DA). The fruits were classified as accepted or non-accepted and used to construct a prediction model based on appearance parameters related to panelists’ acceptance by means of cross-validation values from Confusion Matrix. The genotypes CCP76, BRS189 and BRS265 were related to the attributes of cashew aroma, sweet aroma, cashew flavor, sweet taste, fruit softness and succulence. These clones were also related to the characteristics of greater weight and size of the fruits, and more reddish color, presenting good acceptance for fresh consumption. On the other hand, the genotypes BRS274 and Embrapa50 showed higher relation with sulphurous aroma, acid taste, astringency, roughness in the mouth and throat irritation, as well as smaller and yellowish fruits, presenting lower quality, but yet suitable for juice processing.