Investigation of Volatiles in Charentais Cantaloupe Melons (Cucumis melo Var. cantalupensis). Characterization of Aroma Constituents in Some Cultivars

Volatile compounds of 15 Charentais melon cultivars, known to exhibit differences in their ripening behaviors and in their storage lives (wild, mid, and long shelf life), were investigated. Twenty-eight volatiles (11 esters, 8 sulfur compounds, 6 alcohols, and 3 carbonyl compounds) were isolated by direct dichloromethane extraction and analyzed by means of GC-MS and GC-FID. A considerable reduction in the aroma profile was observed for the long shelf life cultivars, in which total volatiles were 49−87% lower than in the wild or mid shelf life melons. Most of the esters such as ethyl 2-methylbutyrate, ethyl butyrate, ethyl hexanoate, hexyl acetate, and butyl acetate and sulfur compounds such as ethyl 2-(methylthio)acetate, 2-methylthioethanol, ethyl 3-(methylthio)propanoate, 3-(methylthio)propyl acetate, and 3-(methylthio)propanol with low odor values were 2−30-fold lower in long shelf life cultivars than in the others. Discrimination of long shelf life cultivars from wild and mid shelf life melons was achieved by statistical treatment of the data by principal component and variance analysis. Keywords: Charentais melon; Cucumis melo; volatiles; aroma; sulfur compounds