Commercial production of pomegranates is fairly new in South Africa and the cultivar ‘Bhagwa’ is one of the most widely grown in South Africa and globally.
As far as we know, apart from the recent article by Fawole et al. (2011)
on the phytochemical and antioxidant properties of selected fruit cultivars at commercial harvest, there is no information on the changes that occur in chemicals and phenolic composition of pomegranate fruit during maturation.
In order to fully understand the nutritional value offered by pomegranate during maturity stages of the fruit, it is imperative to study the changes in the nutritional contents of commercially grown pomegranate cultivars.
The objective of this study was to quantify the chemical and phenolic composition and antioxidant capacity of pomegranate fruit (cv. ‘Bhagwa’) at different fruit maturity stages and to investigate the relationships among the investigated nutritional parameters.