Environmental and genotypic influence on sensorial and typical potato characteristics

Italy has a great culinary and market food tradition, playing a central role in the ambit of typical products with more than 20 % of European certified productions. Nowadays, the agriculture and diet issues are becoming crucial and complex, especially due to its direct and indirect reflexes on life quality. Potato plays a primary role in Italian horticulture for the possibility of cultivation in different periods of the year guaranteeing fresh product spaced out in time. However Italian products suffer the market competition of other Mediterranean countries, with special regards to products without origin guarantee. In order to find parameters useful in characterizing territorial origin, a collegial research was implemented on potato, involving typical areas for potato cultivation, located in Tuscany, Apulia and Sicily, and using three typical potato varieties, respectively Rossa di Cetica, Sieglinde and Arinda. Eco-physiological parameters were recorded during the crop cycle in order to evaluate vegetative development. Total yield and commercial tuber size classes, mineral element content, market and sensorial characteristics, volatile compound determination were measured. Preliminary results underlined differences in eco-physiological patterns, with greater vegetative development of Rossa di Cetica, in production trends, with greater productivity of Arinda and Rossa di Cetica and in market characteristics, with dry matter, ACB and consistence at cooking highest values in Rossa di Cetica. Panel sessions underlined differences in terms of typical taste, chestnut taste, grass odour in relation to varieties and cultivation areas. Aromatic analysis highlighted 56 chromatographic compounds some of which discriminating for variety and others for cultivation area. Macro and micro element determination highlighted the importance of some elements in discriminating in function of environment or genotype. Such analysis allowed to correlate the product to the environment of cultivation by means of objectively verifiable indicators confirming the importance of the territory in the characterisation of typical products.