| Abstract: In order to study the content of volatile flavor compounds in different harvest periods of Chinese cabbage, and select the best harvest time, the composition and content of volatile compounds in flowering Chinese cabbage Sijiu-19 was analyzed by head space-solid phasemicroextration and gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (HS-SPME-GC-MS). A total of 60 compounds belonging to 10 categories were detected, such as aldehydes, alcohols, hydrocarbons, ketones and esters in the 3 periods of flowering Chinese cabbage Sijiu-19. Among them, esters showed the highest relative content, which were 51.08%- 95.95% (11-16 species). The alcohol accounting for 3.48%-27.42% (4-8 species) was the second. The volatile flavor compounds in the three harvest periods were all containing 2-ethylhexanol, hexanol, hexyl acetate, ethyl laurate, etc. Five categories (23 species), six categories (26 species) and 10 categories (35 species) of volatile flavor compounds were detected in the early stage, the budding stage and the flowering stage of Sijiu-19 cabbage, respectively. With the delay of harvesting time, the total categories and quantities of flavor compounds increased, among which the relative contents and categories of aldehydes, ketones, alcohols, acids, ethers and nitriles increased, while the relative contents and categories of esters decreased. There were differences in the quantities and categories of volatile flavor compounds in the Sijiu-19 harvesting periods. The quantities and categories of volatile flavor compounds in flowering stage were the most, and the flavor quality of the harvested cabbage was the best. |