Nilda Ersoy Akdeniz University, Vocational School of Technical Sciences, Antalya, Turkey

Merve Salman Özen Dörtdivan Directorate of District Food Agriculture and Livestock, Bolu, Turkey

More recently, functional foods or food supplements which can protect humans from oxidative stress and several diseases have attracted worldwide interest. Among functional foods, fruits were given special attention, particularly wild edible fruits (neglected or underutilized fruits). There are various neglected and underutilized fruit tree species grown in Turkey solely. They could be exploited directly as foods, or used to obtain valuable natural compounds and derivatives. Rose hip (Rosa spp.) is one of them. The aim of the study is to determine some fruit characteristics of promising rose hip selections from Bolu province in the western part of Turkey. In the selection study, around 100 wild growing rose hip plants were investigated and among them 9 promising genotypes were selected based on rose hip selection criteria. The fruit mass, fruit flesh ratio, soluble solid content, titratable acidity, total dry matter and vitamin C content of these selected nine genotypes ranged from 1.40-2.77 g, 64.92-82.83%, 24.10-30.50%, 0.04-1.55%, 32.44-56.94% and 332.42-1603.52 mg/100 g respectively. Among the 9 promising genotypes, two genotypes had high, two genotypes had medium and five genotypes had low level of thorn.