Salento Honey (Apulia, South-East Italy): A Preliminary Characterization by 1 H-NMR Metabolomic Fingerprinting

Chiara Roberta Girelli, Roberta Schiavone, Sebastiano Vilella and Francesco Paolo Fanizzi
Additional contact information
Chiara Roberta Girelli: Department of Biological and Environmental Sciences and Technologies, University of Salento, Lecce-Monteroni, 73100 Lecce, Italy
Roberta Schiavone: Department of Biological and Environmental Sciences and Technologies, University of Salento, Lecce-Monteroni, 73100 Lecce, Italy
Sebastiano Vilella: Department of Biological and Environmental Sciences and Technologies, University of Salento, Lecce-Monteroni, 73100 Lecce, Italy
Francesco Paolo Fanizzi: Department of Biological and Environmental Sciences and Technologies, University of Salento, Lecce-Monteroni, 73100 Lecce, Italy

Sustainability, 2020, vol. 12, issue 12, 1-20

Abstract: Honey is a natural sweet substance produced by honeybees from the nectar of flowers, plant secretions or plant-sucking insect excretions. Sugars and water constitute the major components, other minor components characterize the organoleptic and nutritional properties. To date, Salento (Apulia region, Italy) honey production is considerably threatened due to the suggested use of neonicotinoids in order to control the insect-vectored bacterium Xylella fastidiosa (subsp. pauca ). Metabolomics based on Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) spectroscopy was used to describe, for the first time, the composition of honey samples from different Salento producers. Exploratory Principal Component Analysis (PCA) showed, among the observed clustering, a separation between light and dark honeys and a discrimination according to producers, both further analyzed by supervised multivariate analysis. According to the obtained data, although limited to small-scale emerging production, Salento honey shows at the molecular level, a range of specific characteristic features analogous to those exhibited by similar products originating elsewhere and appreciated by consumers. The impact on this production should therefore be carefully considered when suggesting extensive use of pesticides in the area.

Keywords: honey; spectroscopic fingerprint; metabolomics; nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR); multivariate statistical analysis (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/12/12/5009/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/12/12/5009/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:12:y:2020:i:12:p:5009-:d:373482

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().