- 313 - Quality Characteristics of ‘Dongchul’ Persimmon (Diospyros kaki Thunb.) Fruit Grown in Gangwondo, Korea Il-Doo Kim 1 , Sanjeev Kumar Dhungana 2 , Yong-Gon Chae 3 , Nan-Kyung Son 2 and Dong-Hyun Shin 2 * 1 International Institute of Agricultural Research & Development, Kyungpook National University, Daegu 41566, Korea 2 School of Applied Biosciences, Kyungpook National University, Daegu 41566, Korea 3 Department of Hotel & Food Service Industry, Restaurant, Culinary Arts of Wine･Coffee, Daegu Health College, Daegu 41453, Korea Abstract - Persimmon has long been established as one of the major fruits in Korea. The southern parts of Korea were traditionally the pocket areas for good persimmon production; however, rising temperatures have gradually rendered the southern regions unsuitable for successful harvest. Ecology of fruit growing areas affects the productivity of various types of crops, including fruit trees such as persimmon. The quality characteristics of the fruit of persimmon cv. Dongchul grown in Gangwondo, which lies in the northern part of South Korea, were investigated. Different physicochemical, nutritional, and antioxidant properties of fruit were evaluated to assess the locational effect on the quality of persimmon fruits grown in Gangwondo. The results of this study showed that persimmon cv. Dongchul grown in Gangwondo maintains many of the physicochemical (4.33% crude protein and 4.32% crude fiber), nutritional (total mineral content: 461.51 and vitamin C content: 15.28 ㎎/100 g), and antioxidant properties (polyphenol content: 633.1 ㎎ gallic acid equivalent/100 g) those are found in other three commercial cultivars ‘Daebong’, ‘Kyengsan Bansi’, and ‘Sangju Doongsi’ grown in Korea. Overall results of this study imply that ‘Dongchul’ cultivar of persimmon could commercially be grown in Kangwondo, Korea. Key words - Antioxidant, Nutritional property, Persimmon fruit quality, Physicochemical property *Corresponding author. E-mail : dhshin@knu.ac.kr Tel. +82-53-950-5707 ⓒ 2016 by The Plant Resources Society of Korea This is an Open-Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Introduction Persimmon (Diospyros kaki Thunb) is one of the most important fruits and has been cultivated from ancient times in Korea (Seo et al., 2013). Consumption of persimmon fruit is considered beneficial to various physiological functions, including protection against oxidative stress-related diseases; it has antimutagenic and anticarcinogenic properties as it is a valuable source of various biologically active compounds (Suzuki et al., 2005). It is rich in antioxidants such as catechins, which are known to have anti-infective, anti-inflammatory, and antihemorrhagic properties, and gallocatechins (Kim et al., 2006). Persimmon fruits are an abundant source of minerals, amino acids, flavonoids, sugars, carotenoids, tannins, terpenoids, vitamins A and C, and others. The anticarcinogenic properties of persimmon are attributed to the high contents of β -carotene and vitamin A in the fruits (Funayama and Hikino, 1979). Persimmon has long been established as one of the major fruits in Korea (Kang and Ko, 1997). The area under fruit cultivation has almost doubled in the past 20 years and persimmon has become the most widely grown fruit crop in Korea (Song et al., 2005). The southern parts of Korea were traditionally the pocket areas for good persimmon production; however, rising temperatures have gradually rendered the southern regions unsuitable for production of fruits such as pears, peaches, grapes, and sweet persimmons, the cultivation of which has continuously shifted northwards (Kim et al., 2010). Change in climatic conditions of fruit growing area affects not only the growth of fruit trees but also fruit quality, harvest time, and fruit storage. Climate change in Korea has been proceeding at a rate that is faster than the global average rate (Kim et al., 2010). Kim et al. (1988) established marginal regions for safety Korean J. Plant Res. 29(3):313-321(2016) http://dx.doi.org/10.7732/kjpr.2016.29.3.313 Print ISSN 1226-3591 Online ISSN 2287-8203 Original Research Article