RESEARCH ARTICLE
Portugal and Common Blond Oranges: are they the same Variety? Characteristics and Enhancement of the Oldest European Sweet Orange Variety
Roberta Passafiume1, Vittorio Farina1, *, Tommaso La Mantia1
Article Information
Identifiers and Pagination:
Year: 2023Volume: 17
E-location ID: e18743315273225
Publisher ID: e18743315273225
DOI: 10.2174/0118743315273225231121042141
Article History:
Received Date: 20/07/2023Revision Received Date: 30/08/2023
Acceptance Date: 20/08/2023
Electronic publication date: 28/11/2023
Collection year: 2023
open-access license: This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Public License (CC-BY 4.0), a copy of which is available at: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode. This license permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Abstract
Background:
Today, old citrus fruit varieties with traits suited to a market more attentive to a limited territorial distribution of certain species and the preservation of biodiversity are being promoted. One of these is the Portugal orange. The name 'Portugal' disappeared from the writings on citrus fruit growing in the first half of the last century, systematically replaced by the name 'Common Blond'.
Methods:
One hundred fruits of ‘Portugal’ and ‘Common Blond’ oranges come from two varietal collections found in Sicily. Physico-chemical and sensory analyses were carried out to evaluate the qualitative characteristics of both varieties and to confirm or confute the previous hypothesis.
Results:
These analyses confirm that from the point of view of fruit quality, there are no significant differences between 'Portugal' and 'Common Blond' oranges. The differences found can be attributed to the different growing environments, i.e. cultural practices, microclimate, fertilization, etc.
Conclusion:
Furthermore, the historical information provided also supports the hypothesis that the 'Portugal' orange simply changed its name to 'Common Blond', even though there were numerous bud variations that led to the selection of different clones.
