Investigation of edibility properties of some Prunus armeniaca l. (apricot) flowers

Apricot (Prunus armeniaca L.) is a stone fruit species belonging to the genus Prunus. Turkey ranks first in world apricot production, with nearly half of this production taking place in the Malatya region. This study focuses on determining the edible properties of apricot flowers, which hold a very important place in the world and in our country, analyzing the bioactive substances of apricot flowers, and revealing their contents. The popularity of edible flowers in the food industry is increasing every year. In this study, the total phenolic, total flavonoid, antioxidant capacity (using three different methods-DPPH, ABTS, and FRAP), amygdalin, ascorbic acid, sugar, mineral content, antimicrobial, anti-quorum sensing, and mutagenic activity parameters of the flowers of local Hacıhaliloğlu, Kabaaşı, Hasanbey, and Soğancı apricot cultivars grown under the ecological conditions of Malatya were examined. According to the analysis results; total phenolic content ranged from 924-1914 mg/100g, total flavonoid content from 237-300 mg/100g, antioxidant capacity from 40-90% by ABTS method, 43-56% by DPPH method and 576-705 µmol/g by FRAP method, glucose from 2.88-5.72 g/100g, fructose from 3.31-5.06 g/100g, sucrose from 0.87-1.53 g/100g, total sugar from 2.35-4.10 g/100g, amygdalin from 262.8-479.4 ppm, and ascorbic acid from 189-231 mg/100g. Antimicrobial activity: It was determined that Soğancı and Hasanbey apricot blossom extracts were most susceptible to Bacillus licheniformis ATCC 14580, while Hacıhaliloğlu and Kabaaşı apricot blossom extracts were most susceptible to Listeria monocytogenes ATCC 19115. The highest % violacein inhibition activity against Chromobacterium violaceum ATCC 12472 was observed in Hacıhaliloğlu apricot blossom extract at 72.37% with a substance concentration of 2.5415 mg/mL. Furthermore, all apricot blossom extracts exhibited good QS inhibition activity against Chromobacterium violaceum CV026. Mutagenic activity analysis results showed that; In apricot blossom samples, all doses of Hasanbey and the 25 and 100 µL/plate doses of Soğancı yielded statistically significant results in TA98 strains compared to the solvent control. Furthermore, in TA100 strains, the 50 and 100 µL/plate doses of Hasanbey and the 100 µL/plate dose of Hacıhaliloğlu were statistically significant compared to the solvent control.