Comprehensive Evaluation and Analysis of Dried Fruit Quality and Mineral Elements of 60 Different Germplasms of Lycium barbarum L.

Based on the differences and correlations of quality and mineral elements content in dried fruit of Lycium barbarum L., a comprehensive evaluation system was established to screen the excellent germplasms, also to provide theoretical basis for high quality breeding of Lycium barbarum L.. The 16 qualities and mineral elements content of dried fruit in 60 germplasms of Lycium barbarum L. were measured. The core evaluation indexes were screened by coefficient of variation, correlation analysis and factor analysis, and the comprehensive evaluation system of dried fruit quality of Lycium barbarum L. was constructed by analytic hierarchy process (AHP), grey correlation analysis (GCA) and cluster analysis (CA). The results showed that there were significant differences in nutritional components, constant element and trace element contents among different germplasms. There were significant positive correlations between total sugar content, betaine content and Zn content, polysaccharide content and Fe content, carotenoids content and Mg, Se content, flavonoids content and B, Zn, Ca content, fat content and Se, Mg content (P<0.01), while there were significant negative correlations between total sugar content and carotenoids content, protein content and Zn content (P<0.01). Nine core indexes were filtered out by factor analysis, and the accumulative contribution rate of the first eight factors was 85.591%. The AHP divided the nine core indicators into three categories, which were nutritional factors, constant element factors and trace element factors. The comprehensive weight of core indexes were polysaccharide (0.138), carotenoids (0.269), flavonoids (0.373), fat (0.220), Ca (0.474), Mg (0.606), Fe (0.394), B (0.123), Se (0.403). The 60 germplasms could be divided into five categories when the Euclidean distance was 8.63, and 'Ningnongqi No.3', 'Ningnongqi No. 9', '14-06-11-12', '14-02-03-21' and '14-04-03-13' were the relative excellent germplasms selected by both factor analysis and grey correlation analysis. The comprehensive evaluation and analysis of dried fruit quality and mineral elements of different Lycium barbarum L. germplasms revealed the relationship between dried fruit quality and the content of constant and trace elements, and 5 excellent germplasms were selected finally.