## 3 Results
### SA Application Decreases Total Anthocyanins and Cyanidin-3-Rutinoside Contents
The concentration effect was significant (\(p_{sat}<0.001\)) in the C0 and C2 categories and not significant in C1 (Table 2). Comparing all data, SA-treated fruit in C0 exhibited the highest transcript levels followed by controls in C0 and SA-treated fruit (1 mM) in C2 (\(p_{all}<0.001\); Table 2). Partial analyses of SA-treated fruit (2 mM) in all categories, exhibited a significant decreasing effect (\(p<0.001\)) for PAL transcript levels. Figure 3: Changes in total anthocyanin content (**a**) and in cyanidin\(-3-\)rutinoside (**b**) in cracking categories of fig peel after preharvest treatment with different concentrations of salicylic acid (SA), in year 1. Categories: C0, sound fruit; C1, slightly cracked; C2, highly cracked. All data presented are means (n = 3); bars are standard deviations. Columns not sharing a common letter are significantly different by Tukey test (\(\alpha\) = 0.05). Lowercase letters correspond to one-way ANOVA in each cracking category; capital letters correspond to one-way ANOVA of all data. In C0, SA application (1 mM) showed the highest \(ANS\) transcript levels (\(p_{sa}<0.05\)). In C1, SA application (1 and 2 mM) increased transcript levels as compared to the control. In C2, SA application (2 mM) decreased transcript level as compared to the control. The concentration effect was significant in each category, C0, C1, and C2, at \(p_{sa}<0.05\), \(p_{sa}<0.01\), and \(p_{sa}<0.01\), respectively (Figure 4b; Table 2). Comparison of all data (Figure 4b) showed significant differences (\(p_{all}<0.001\)), but changes in the levels showed no consistent trend, apart from SA application (1 mM) maintaining similarly high values in all categories. Controls in C0 exhibited the highest transcription levels of _UFGT1_ (Figure 4c), followed by SA-treated fruit (2 mM) in C0. In C1, the levels of SA-treated fruit (2 mM) were slightly lower than controls (\(p_{sa}<0.05\)), whereas in C2 the SA-treated fruit (1 mM) were higher than controls and SA-treated fruit (2 mM) \(p_{sa}<0.001\)) (Table 2). Comparison of all data showed a superiority of controls followed by SA-treated fruit (2 mM) in C0 (\(p_{all}<0.001\)). Partial analyses of controls, and SA-treated fruit (1 and  
Figure 4: Changes in expression of genes coding for PAL (**a**), ANS (**b**), UFGT1 (**c**), and UFGT2 (**d**) in cracking categories of fig peel after preharvest treatment with different concentrations of salicylic acid (SA), in year 1. Categories: C0, sound fruit; C1, slightly cracked; C2, highly cracked. All data presented are means (n = 3); bars are standard deviations. Columns not sharing a common letter are significantly different by Tukey test (\(\alpha=0.05\)). Lowercase letters correspond to one-way ANOVA in each cracking category; capital letters correspond to one-way ANOVA of all data. 2 mM), showed that _UFGT1_ exhibited significantly decreasing values in cracked fruit in all categories, C0, C1, and C2, at \(p<0.001\), \(p<0.05\), and \(p<0.001\), respectively. By contrast, the highest transcript levels for _UFGT2_ were observed in C2 treated by 1 mM SA (Figure 4d). In C0, all fruit had similar levels and the SA effect was not significant (\(p_{sat}>0.05\); Table 2). In C1 and C2, controls had lower levels than SA-treated fruit (1 mM), while the levels of SA-treated fruit (2 mM) were largely diminished. The effect of concentration was highly significant in C1 and C2 (\(p_{sat}<0.001\)) (Table 2). Comparison of all data indicated that levels in SA-treated fruit (1 mM) increased by cracking, in contrast to controls and SA-treated fruit (2 mM) where cracking decreased the respective levels (\(p_{all}<0.001\)). Partial analyses for each concentration confirmed that in controls and SA-treated fruit (2 mM), the levels of _UFGT2_ were significantly reduced by cracking and in contrast to SA-treated fruit (1 mM), where these were increased. Differences among categories were significant at \(p_{sat}<0.001\) for SA-treated fruit (1 and 2 mM), and \(p_{sat}<0.01\) for controls.