日本に自生する香りナシ(梨)遺伝資源のイワテャマナシ

摘要

岩手県出身の宮沢賢治の童話「やまなし」では蟹の親子が谷川に落果したナシ（梨）の香りを嗅いで，"ああいい匂いだな。なるほど，そこらの月あかりの水の中は，やまなしのいい匂いでいっぱいでした"と会話するくだりが出てくる。この「やまなし」の正体が近年の探索，収集調査から明らかになつてきた。同時に現在進行中の「やまなし」の香りについての研究結果を紹介する。%Iwateyamanashi (Pyrus ussuriensis var. aromatica) is a species of pear that grows wild in Northern Tohoku of Japan. Some of the local cultivars and wild individuals bear good aromatic fruit. Iwateyamanashi may provide valuable germplasms as a donor of fruit flavor in the breeding of the Japanese pear (P. pyrifolia), as almost all Japanese pear cultivars are faint in flavor. The authors performed a comparative aroma extraction dilution analysis (AEDA) to characterize the fruit flavors of the following: the two local cultivars 'Sanenashi' and 'Natsunashi,' a wild accession (i0830) of Iwateyamanashi, the Japanese pear cultivar 'Kosui,' and the European pear cuitivar 'La France.' In an ensuing principal component analysis (PCA)，11 odor compounds from 16 accessions of Iwateyamanashi appeared in various combinations with wide-ranging odor concentrations. Two accessions of the local cultivar 'Natsunashi' conspicuously plotted in the ethyl ester group might be useful for Japanese pear breeding.