Manuel Martínez Cano

Estudio del contenido en ácidos grasos de aceites monovarietales elaborados a partir de aceitunas producidas en la región extremeña

Fatty acid composition of 483 samples of virgin olive oils from olives of the Extremadura varieties: Carrasquena, Cacerena, Cornezuelo, Corniche, Morisca, Picual and Verdial de Badajoz, were analysed. After the quantitative analysis of main fatty acids, the variability according to the variety and state of ripening was studied. The discriminant analysis, taking the variety like grouping variable, explains more than 79,7 % of the variance with the two first functions and the model allows correctly classified 87,7 % of the 399 observations. The method, validated with the rest of analysed samples, improves the classification up to 89,3 %.

Chemical composition of virgin olive oils according to the ripening in olives

The aim of this study was the classification of olive oil according to the stage of ripeness of the olives used for its manufacture. A discriminant analysis was applied taking as dependent variables the fatty acids, triglycerides and sterols profile. The evolution of parameters of quality of the oils during ripening of the fruit has also been studied in three successive crops. The results of the classification shows that 88.5% of selected original grouped cases are correctly classified (85.7% green, 80% spotted and 78.9% ripe) and furthermore the validation classified the 69.6% of the unselected original cases. The most discriminating variables have been: avenasterol, linolenic acid, β-sitosterol and gadoleico. Fig. 1 shows graphically the values of the canonical discriminant functions and the centroids of the intervals of three or the maturity index.