Ecological conditions, cultivar, location, soil, fertiliser and irrigation, technical and cultural practices can affect quality traits, and consequently strongly influence the stability and the nutritional value of the product. The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of the geographical location and climatic conditions on hazelnut fatty acids in seven reference hazelnut cultivars cultivated in Italy (two locations), Spain, Portugal, Slovenia and France. The cultivars under evaluation were: ‘Tonda Gentile delle Langhe’, ‘Merveille de Bollwiller’, ‘Negret’, ‘Pauetet’, ‘Tonda di Giffoni’, ‘Barcelona’ and ‘Gironell’. Samples were taken from the same trees in seven European collections: National Collection in Viseu, Portugal; Conservatoire Végétal Régional d’Aquinatanie, Montesquieu, France; IRTA (Institut de Recerca i Tecnologia Agroalimentàries), Constantí, Spain; ex situ collection in Maribor, Slovenia; Monti Cimini, Viterbo and University of Torino, Cravanzana collections in Italy for three years. After the harvest, nuts were stored in-shell at 5°C in plastic bags in the dark until analyses. Total oil content was determined according to AOAC 954.02 official method; tocopherols were determined with slight modifications of the method illustrated by Kodad et al. (2006). Different statistical methods were applied comparing the results when possible in order to reinforce data interpretation. Our results suggested that harvest-year, genotype and geographical location of cultivations play a significant role in defining the fatty acid profile of the cultivars. In particular the influence of geographical location was more relevant than other parameters. Furthermore a preliminary study to identify fad2 gene encoding for delta desaturase, which transform oleic in linoleic acid, was also carried out in ‘Tonda Gentile Romana’. These outputs improve our knowledge on hazelnut quality and nutritional value following the modern industry requests for high-quality kernel attributes as well as consumers’ needs for food with beneficial health effects. © 2018 International Society for Horticultural Science. All Rights Reserved.

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