Baldwin William C, Chiang Angela, Wyatt Gabrielle, Nau Katlyn, Chastagner Gary, Landgren Chal, Kowalski Judith, Sims Charles, Zerbe Philipp, Whitehill Justin G A
Department of Forestry and Environmental Resources, North Carolina State University, 840 Main Campus Drive, Partners II, 2500 Suite, Raleigh, NC, 27695, USA.
Department of Plant Biology, University of California-Davis, Davis, CA, 95616, USA.
Sci Rep. 2025 May 27;15(1):18500. doi: 10.1038/s41598-025-01505-1.
Real Christmas trees contribute ~$2.5 billion to the US economy annually. True fir (Abies spp.) are the most popular trees and account for the majority of sales. The real Christmas tree commodity board identified aroma as the primary driver for consumers to purchase a real tree. We conducted consumer aroma panels for five (Fraser, noble, Nordmann, Trojan, and concolor) of the most popular fir Christmas trees in the US. Based on aroma characteristics alone, Fraser fir was found to be most liked while noble fir ranked last amongst consumers. Gas Chromatography Mass Spectroscopy metabolite profiling of terpene (the major drivers of conifer aroma) putatively identified 132 mono- and sesquiterpene and 48 diterpene metabolites across all five species. Among these, the sesquiterpene, β-bisabolene, was strongly correlated with consumer liking. These findings provide a resource to identify compounds positively associated with consumer preference to help guide Christmas tree genetic improvement efforts.
真正的圣诞树每年为美国经济贡献约25亿美元。真冷杉（冷杉属）是最受欢迎的树种，占销售的大部分。真正的圣诞树商品委员会将香气确定为消费者购买真树的主要驱动力。我们对美国最受欢迎的五种冷杉圣诞树（弗雷泽冷杉、壮丽冷杉、欧洲云杉、特洛伊冷杉和科罗拉多冷杉）进行了消费者香气评估。仅基于香气特征，弗雷泽冷杉被发现最受喜爱，而壮丽冷杉在消费者中排名最后。对萜烯（针叶树香气的主要驱动因素）进行气相色谱 - 质谱代谢物分析，推测在所有五个物种中鉴定出132种单萜和倍半萜以及48种二萜代谢物。其中，倍半萜β-红没药烯与消费者的喜好密切相关。这些发现为鉴定与消费者偏好呈正相关的化合物提供了资源，有助于指导圣诞树的遗传改良工作。
