The content of carotenoids and tocochromanols in bitter, semi-sweet and sweet apricots depending on different harvest times and geographical regions

During the ripening of three apricots cultivars (“Bargoug”, “Chechi Bazza” and “Oud Rhayem”) grown in two different geographical regions of Tunisia (Testour and Gafsa regions), the changes of tocopherols, tocotrienols and carotenoids contents were determined by using high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) with UV–Vis photo diode array detection. The total tocopherols content ranged to from (30.43 mg/100 g of oil) to (70.69 mg/100 g of oil) with 7 compounds identified as α-T, α-T3 β-T, γ-T, γ-T3, δ-T and δ-T3 mainly consisted with γ-T (28.8 to 44.6 mg/100 g of oil). Furthermore, all apricot varieties were found to be a good source of carotenoid compounds with β- carotene as the major one ranging from 127 to 566 µg/100 g of oil followed by α-carotene ranging from 25.7 to 81.8 µg/100 g of oil and γ-carotene ranging from 7.7 to 56.38 µg/100 g of oil. Zeaxanthin and Lutein were found only in bitter apricot precisely at immature stage (14 DAP) with respectively 105.2 and 141.8 µg/100 g of oil values.