In this study (open access), researchers set out to discriminate Royal Gala and Golden Delicious apples as being either Czech or Polish origin. They built a reference database of 64 samples were collected in the years 2020–2022 from Central Bohemia Eastern Bohemia, South Moravia, Lower Silesian Voivodeship, Łódź Voivodeship, and Masovian Voivodeship. They measured phosphorus (P), potassium (K), magnesium (Mg), calcium (Ca), boron (B), zinc (Zn), manganese (Mn), and iron (Fe) as well as isotope ratios 10B/11B and 87Sr/86Sr.
They concluded that, with this data set, it was not possible to robustly differentiate Czech vs Polish origin. The variation within individual regions, and the variation due to different agricultural inputs, was too significant compared to the variation between countries. They concluded that differentiation would be possible in principle but a much more granular reference database would be needed. Their findings contradicted previous published work that phosphorus was a suitable marker to differentiate Czech from Polish apples.
Photo by Priscilla Du Preez 🇨🇦 on Unsplash
