The horticultural production of bell peppers generates large quantities of residual biomass. Abiotic stress stimulates the production of protective flavonoids, so the deliberate application of stress to the plants after fruit harvest could provide a strategy to valorize horticultural residuals by increasing flavonoid concentrations, facilitating their industrial extraction. Here we exposed two Capsicum cultivars, a chilli and a bell pepper, to cold and salt stress and combinations thereof to determine their valorization potential. Noninvasive image-based phenotyping and multiparametric fluorescence measurements indicated that all stress treatments inhibited plant growth and reduced the leaf chlorophyll fluorescence index, with the chilli cultivar showing greater sensitivity. The fluorescence-based FLAV index allowed the noninvasive assessment of foliar luteolin glycosides. High-performance liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (HPLC-MS) analysis showed that moderate cold increased the levels of two foliar antioxidant luteolin glycosides in both cultivars, with bell pepper containing the highest amounts (induced to maximum 5.5 mg g-1 DW cynaroside and 37.0 mg g-1 DW graveobioside A) after combined stress treatment. These data confirm the potential of abiotic stress for the valorization of residual leaf biomass to enhance the industrial extraction of antioxidant and bioactive flavonoids.
Keywords: abiotic stress; antioxidants; apigetrin; apiin; bell pepper; chilli; cynaroside; graveobioside A.