Harvest Number and Growing Season Effects on Quality and Health Related Compounds in Parsley

Background and Purpose: Parsley is mostly grown outdoors and harvested seasonally. Farmers in many parsley producing countries, especially in the temperate region such as Turkey usually prefer spring sowings (summer growing season-SGS) and fall sowings (winter growing season-WGS) for open field production. Parsley can be usually harvested 4-8 times in temperate climates, if some special precautions are taken it may be 10- 15 times. In arid, hot and cold climate regions, 2-4 harvests can be obtained. Material and Methods: Seed material of parsley obtained from regional farmers. Two growing cycles per year, i.e. for summer growing season (SGS) and winter growing season (WGS) production and harvest number, have been investigated for their effects on quality and health promoting compounds of parsley such as dry matter content (DMC), color values, chlorophylls (Chl), vitamin C, antioxidant activity and total phenol content. Results: Statistically significant differences were identified for DMC, color values, Chl and total phenol between harvest numbers for both the growing seasons. On the other hand, vitamin C and antioxidant activity were not affected significantly by harvest numbers for both the growing seasons. DMC increased with increasing harvest numbers for only the SGS. Darkest leaves were obtained from fourth harvest for the SGS; from second harvest for the WGS. First harvest had the highest Chl ‘a’+’b’ with 52.87 mg/100 g for the SGS; second harvest had the highest Chl ‘a’+’b’ (40.36 mg/100 g ) for the WGS. Total phenol content decreased with increasing harvest numbers for the SGS. Contrarily to the SGS, total phenol content increased slightly with increasing harvest numbers by 5% for the WGS. Conclusion: It can be concluded that depending on harvest numbers either an increase, a decrease or no effect in quality and health related compounds of parsley seemed to occur. The SGS may be taken more seriously, since it creates a better environment for the expression of different quality traits as compared to the WGS.