Characterization of fruit and juice traits of USDA pomegranate germplasm: insights from 20 diverse accessions

Authors: LANA, GIUSEPPE - University Of Florida; PAREEK, SHALINI - University Of Florida; VOLPE, JOSEPH - University Of Florida; Heinitz, Claire; CHATER, JOHN - University Of Florida

Submitted to: HortScience
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: 4/7/2026
Publication Date: 5/4/2026
Citation: Lana, G., Pareek, S., Volpe, J.H., Heinitz, C.C., Chater, J.M. 2026. Characterization of fruit and juice traits of USDA pomegranate germplasm: insights from 20 diverse accessions. HortScience. Vol. 61(6).

Interpretive Summary: Pomegranates have been grown and used for thousands of years, but scientists still don’t know enough about the differences between varieties. Most of the USDA’s large collection of pomegranates has little information about fruit size, seed count, juice sweetness, acidity, and color. This makes it hard for breeders, farmers, and food companies to choose the best types for growing and processing. This study tested 20 pomegranate varieties from around the world to learn about their fruit and juice quality. Researchers measured things like fruit size, peel color, seed weight, juice sweetness, and acidity. They found big differences among varieties—for example, some had very low acidity, while others were much more sour. These results are a first step toward fully understanding the USDA collection, which will help create better varieties, improve farming, and make higher-quality products.

Technical Abstract: Pomegranate is an ancient tree fruit crop that has been used for food, beverages, medicines, dyes, and other purposes for thousands of years. The industry standard cultivar in the United States and several other countries is ‘Wonderful’, which is believed to have originated in Florida and was propagated in California for commercial production. The United States Department of Agriculture National Clonal Germplasm Repository - Tree Fruit and Nut Crops and Grapes conserves a plethora of pomegranate accessions for breeding, research and conservation. Despite the repository’s long history of conserving mature germplasm, understanding of the phenotypic diversity within the collection remains limited. Moreover, the fruit and juice properties of most accessions are largely undocumented. The present investigation includes an evaluation of 20 pomegranate accessions of diverse international origin for fruit and juice quality. The selected accessions include ‘Afganski’, ‘Ariana’, ‘Azadi’, ‘Blaze’, ‘Chandyr’, ‘Eversweet’, ‘Girkanets’, ‘Kopetdag’, ‘Lou Lou’, ‘Palermo’, ‘Parfianka’, ‘Purple Heart’, ‘Phoenicia’, ‘Rosamia’, ‘Sakerdze’, ‘Salavatski’, ‘Utah Sweet’, ‘Vkusnyi’, ‘Wonderful’, and ‘Zubejda (Denau)’. This study represents 11.1% of the 179 available pomegranate accessions currently maintained by the USDA. The fruit traits evaluated included fruit mass, diameter, length, 100-seed mass, total seed mass, mean number of seeds per fruit, and peel color. The juice traits assessed were titratable acidity, total soluble solids, sugar-to-acid ratio, and color. Significant differences were observed among accessions for all traits evaluated. Several accessions, including ‘Eversweet’, ‘Lou Lou’, ‘Azadi’, ‘Utah Sweet’ and ‘Rosamia’ exhibited notably lower acidity. In contrast, ‘Chandyr’ had the highest titratable acidity, significantly exceeding all other accessions in this study. Further research is required to comprehensively characterize the USDA pomegranate collection, providing essential information on fruit and juice traits that will support breeders in developing improved cultivars, growers in optimizing production, and packers and processors in enhancing product quality.