Morphological, pomological, and nutritional value of wild and cultivated rosehip ( Rosa canina L.) genotypes in Slavonia, Croatia

: In this study, the morphological, pomological, and nutritional values of wild and cultivated rosehip fruits grown in the Slavonia region of eastern Croatia were studied. The results revealed significant differences in several morphological and pomological characteristics among the rosehip genotypes in terms of fruit weight, flesh weight, seed weight, and fruit flesh ratio, with no significant differences in fruit width, fruit length, fruit shape index, seed number per fruit, or seed length. The evaluated rosehip fruit genotypes differed significantly from each other in terms of hectoliter weight (kg), fruit bulk (cm 3 ), and bulk density (kg/m 3 ). For water–soluble extracts, ash, and pH, no statistical difference was found between naturally grown genotypes, but there was a significant difference between naturally grown and cultivated genotypes. Twenty-three major and trace elements were analyzed. The most abundant elements were K, Ca, Mg, and P


Introduction
The genus Rosa includes approximately 200 species (Żuraw et al., 2015) and many Rosa spp. grow along roadsides, the edge of woods, and other wild places in the northern hemisphere only. In Croatia, the most widespread wild species is rosehip (Rosa canina L.); however, the cultivation of rosehip fruit in Croatia is almost nonexistent (Šindrak et al., 2012). The consumption of rosehip fruit is very popular in Scandinavian countries, Germany, and Eastern European countries (Patel, 2017). To the best of our knowledge, no scientific studies on the morphology and nutritional value of rosehip species grown in eastern Croatia have been published. Growing rosehips is important because of their potential value in organic farming, biodiversity conservation, environmental protection, and the nutritional and medicinal properties of their fruits. The fruits of the dog rose to have high phenolic (Hvattum, 2002), vitamin C (Demir & Ozcan, 2001;Chrubasik et al., 2008), and carotenoid (Hornero-Mendez & Minguez-Mosquera, 2000) content, and also contain folates, calcium, potassium, phosphorus, and other vitamins and minerals (Szentmihalyi et al., 2002;Hakki Yoruk et al., 2008). Because of their natural antioxidant activity and beneficial effects on the human body, they are used in health protection (Demir et al., 2014;Smanalieva et al., 2020) and for food production, such as tea, jams, and marmalades (Yildiz & Alpaslan, 2012). In general, fruit species found in spontaneous flora have always been used for both food and medicinal purposes because of their high bioactive compound content (Mármol et al., 2017;Cosmulescu et al., 2020).
The aim of this study was to evaluate and characterize the morphological, pomological, and nutritional value of the chemical and mineral content in rosehip fruits and pulp from the genotypes of cultivated and naturally grown Rosa canina L. plants in Slavonia, eastern Croatia.

Material and methods
This study was conducted in eastern Croatia in September 2020, and samples were taken from four different locations 49°9´59.96" N,17°44´41.82" E;45°09'58.5" N,17°56'52.9" E;45°21´40.17" N,18°2´7.13" E;45°13´56.88" N,17°53´11.33" E). Rosa canina var. inermis was grown at location L1 with conventional fruit growing methods; Rosa canina var. 'Brogs Stachellose' were grown with organic methods at location L2, and a fruit selection was naturally grown at locations L3 and L4. All four locations have a moderate continental climate, with an average monthly temperature above 10 ºC for more than four months, a medium temperature below 22 ºC in the hottest month, and an average annual rainfall of 700 -800 mm. The areas along the Sava River and its surroundings have predominantly alluvial-amphigley soils, with occasional excessive wetting by surface water (pseudogley). The rosehip samples consisted of one hundred mature fruits at the same ripening stage (intense red color) from ten plants in four repetitions that were randomly selected. At each location, the samples were randomly harvested from different shrub heights at the optimal maturity stage. The samples were transferred to the Agroecological Laboratory, Biotechnical Department at the University of Slavonski Brod in Croatia and stored in a cooler until the morphological, technological, chemical, and mineral (lyophilized and ground hips) analyses at the Technology Laboratory, (AA). The total concentrations of the following elements were determined: P, Na, Mg, K, Ca, S, Mn, Fe, Cu, Zn, Co, Cr, Rb, Pb, Al, Ba, Ni, Sr, As, Li, Cd, Ti, and V. The fruit was weighed using a Nimbus analytical balance NBL 254 I scale (Adam Equipment, Kingston, UK), and the fruit length and width were measured using a DIGI-MET 1226932-D sliding scale (Helios Preisser, Gammertingen, Germany).

Total phenol content
Polyphenol content was determined using the Folin-Ciocalteu method (Obradović et al. 2015). An aliquot of the extract (200 μL) was mixed with 2 mL water and 100 μL Folin-Ciocalteu reagent (Kemika, Zagreb, Croatia). The mixture was allowed to equilibrate for 5 min, after which 300 μL of sodium carbonate solution (20%) was added. After incubating at room temperature for 30 min in the dark, the absorbance of the mixture was recorded at 725 nm (UV-VIS Spectrophotometer, M501, Camspec, Ballyclare, UK). Acidified methanol was used as a blank. The total polyphenol content was determined using three replicates. Gallic acid (Carlo Erba reagents, Milano, Italy) was used as a standard (calibration curve y = 1.1979x -0.0188, R 2 = 0.9984), and the results were expressed in mg of gallic acid equivalents per 100 g of sample.

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Vol. 75, Article 7512 DOI: 10.5586/aa.7512 An aliquot of the extract (50 μL) was mixed with 2 mL DPPH radical solution (0.1 mM in ethanol). The absorbance of the mixture was recorded at 517 nm over a period of 30 min, and the results were expressed as the mean of three replicates. Pure ethanol was used as a blank.
AA as % inhibition was calculated according to the following equation: where A0 is the absorbance of the DPPH radical solution and At is the absorbance after 30 min.

Total acids
The determination of acidity (total acids) was performed by titration with 0.1 M NaOH solution, using phenolphthalein as an indicator and expressed as malic acid.

Dry matter
The proportion of total dry matter by drying to constant weight at 105 °C.
Multi-element analysis using plasma mass spectrometry Pulp samples from each location were subjected to multi-element analyses. Before analysis, the samples were lyophilized, ground in an agate mortar, and dissolved in a closed microwave system according to the method described below. The sample resolution was performed using a Multiwave ECO microwave system (Anton Paar, Graz, Austria). Initially, 0.05 g of sample was weighed, after which 7 mL of HNO3 (65% supra pur, Fluka, Steinheim, Switzerland) and

Results
The evaluated rosehip fruit genotypes from four different locations and cultivation methods were not significantly different in fruit length, fruit width, fruit shape index, seed number per fruit, and seed length but did differ significantly in fruit weight, flesh weight, seed weight, and fruit flesh ratio (Table 1). Genotype L1 had a significantly higher flesh weight than the other genotypes. Genotypes L1 and L2 had significantly higher fruit flesh ratios than L3 and L4.
Genotypes L1 and L4 had significantly higher fruit weights than genotypes L2 and L3.
Genotypes L3 and L4 had significantly higher seed weights than L2, whereas the L1 genotype had no significant differences in seed weight for all three genotypes ( Table 1).
Some of the pomological and phytochemical characteristics of the rosehip genotypes are listed in Table 2. The evaluated fruit genotypes of rosehip were significantly different (p < 0.05) from each other in bulk density and total polyphenol. Bulk density was significantly higher in the L3 genotype and significantly lower in the L1 genotype. The total polyphenol was significantly higher in the L4 genotype and significantly lower in the L1 genotype. The total polyphenol was significantly higher in the L4 genotype and significantly lower in the L1 genotype. An evaluation of the dry matter content, acidity (% malic acid), and antioxidant activity showed statistically significant differences between the L1 genotype and the other three genotypes; however, no statistical differences were between the L2, L3, and L4 genotypes. The L1 genotype had the highest acidity but the lowest dry matter content and antioxidant activity (Table 2).
For the water-soluble extract, ash, and pH, no statistical difference was found between naturally grown (L3 and L4) genotypes but was found between naturally grown (L3, L4) and cultivated genotypes (L1, L2), and naturally grown fruits had the highest value for the mentioned attributes ( Table 2). The total polyphenol compounds of rosehip genotypes changed significantly depending on the genetic variation ( Table 2). The highest and lowest levels of total polyphenol compounds were detected in L4 (4634.43 mg GAE/100 g DW) and L1 (4033.37 mg GAE/100 g DW) samples, respectively.
Twenty-three major and trace elements were analyzed (Table 3) and the results showed significant differences between the rosehip genotypes at different locations. The most abundant elements detected in this study were K and Ca; however, Ca was less abundant in wild rosehip fruit than in the cultivated rosehip genotypes. The highest concentrations of microelements were Fe, Al, Mn, and Sr, whereas the lowest concentrations of microelements were As, Co, Cd, Pb, and Cr (Table 3). Genotypes L4 and L1 had higher Fe and Na content, which are essential elements for humans, and higher contents of Al and Ti. The L1 genotype also had higher contents of Sr, V, Cr, Pb, Co, Li, and As. The other genotypes that were examined had similar results for the aforementioned elements. This may be because

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Vol. 75, Article 7512 DOI: 10.5586/aa.7512 conventional fruit grows with different chemical methods of plant protection, types of fertilization, and locations. Genotype L4 had higher concentrations of S, Zn, Rb, and Cd and the lowest concentrations of Mg, K, and Ca, which are essential elements for humans. The naturally grown L3 genotype had smaller fluctuations in mineral content than the other two cultivated genotypes.

Discussion
The results of this rosehip fruit genotype analysis corresponded with other studies that recorded similar pomological properties, such as fruit length, fruit width, fruit weight, fruit shape index, flesh weight, number of seeds per fruit, seed length, seed weight, and fruit flesh ratio (Dogan & Kazankaya, 2006;Stoenescu & Cosmulescu, 2021). Statistical differences between cultivated species and genotypes in naturally grown locations were observed for seed weight and fruit flesh ratio, indicating that the genotypes from naturally grown locations had a smaller proportion of fruit flesh and higher seed weight. For most of the studied morphological and pomological traits, the rosehip fruit genotype L3 from the naturally grown area showed the lowest values ( however, statistical differences were found between naturally grown (L3 and L4) and