Solid-state 1H-NMR relaxation properties of the fruit of a wild relative of eggplant at different proton Larmor frequencies

1H longitudinal relaxation time profiles (T1) at different proton Larmor frequencies were registered for a solid state plant tissue by using fast field cycling (FFC) nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy. T1 distributions were obtained and the curves deconvoluted in order to differentiate among the different T1 components. Among the components, two were assigned to hydrophobic (e.g. fatty acids) and hydrophilic (e.g. saccharides) molecular systems, whereas the remaining others were attributed to bulk and bound water. This paper showed for the first time solid state FFC-NMR spectroscopy applied to plant tissue, and revealed that relaxometry is a very promising technique for studying plant systems.