Although Jerusalem artichoke is not recognized as a commercial plant species that is cultivated in very wide areas, it emerges as a product that increases its popularity due to its high adaptability, relatively easy cultivation and high inulin content in recent years. In this study, the inulin content of Turkish Jerusalem Artichoke accessions was aimed to determine for the first time. Jerusalem artichoke tubers of eighteen accessions, collected from nine different cities of Turkey, were used as plant material. To calculate the amount of inulin in tubers, the hydrolysates were analyzed using spectrophotometer. The results were expressed as percentage of inulin content on dry and fresh weight basis. Inulin contents in dry matter samples of the Jerusalem artichoke accessions were 47.34±12.51% on an average. The highest inulin content (82.34%) was obtained from the genotype 38*1 collected from Kayseri / İncesu; the lowest content (33.79%) was obtained from the accession 50*1 collected from Nevşehir/Gülşehir. The highest inulin yield was obtained from accession 19*3 collected from Çorum/Ferizli (80.13 g/plant). This was followed by genotype 19*1 collected from the same city (66.45 g/plant). Considering the inulin ratios in fresh tubers, the highest result was obtained from accession 38*1 (15.89%). The average inulin content of all accessions was 9.28% / fresh tuber weight. Cluster analyses were performed according to the Ward method and Euclidian distances using inulin contents of accessions in fresh tubers and dry samples. The most distant accessions are 38*1 to 50*1 (diversity coefficient: 49.39); the closest accessions were 19*4 and 40*1 (diversity coefficient: 0.36). All accessions were clustered in two main groups. Both clusters had an equal number of accessions. A high variation was observed in Jerusalem artichoke accessions collected from different regions of Turkey.
Key words: Diversity, Inulin, Helianthus, Prebiotic, Tuber
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