New Zealand Journal of Crop and Horticultural Science abstracts
Quality of processing tomato (Lycoperscion esculentum) fruit from four bloom
dates in relation to optimal harvest timing
A. R. RENQUIST
J. B. REID
New Zealand Institute for Crop & Food
Research Limited
Hawke's Bay Research Centre
Box 85, Hastings
New Zealand
Abstract Two related processing tomato (
Lycoperscion
esculentum (L.)) fruit quality issues were investigated: (1) the difficulty
of representative sampling to test quality, given the wide range of fruit age
at harvest time; and (2) identifying the best time to harvest for maximum
quality. In a Hastings, New Zealand, trial we tagged large samples of opening
flowers on each of four dates about a week apart, and at harvest we compared
quality of fruit homogenate (puree). There was a distinct pattern of higher
quality in the latest-set (youngest) fruit in terms of total solids, deg.Brix
(soluble solids), titratable acidity, and Bostwick flow (gross viscosity).
These data are indirect evidence that fruit would have higher quality if
harvested at an earlier stage of maturity than currently practised. Average
skin and puree colour were both slightly less red in the fruit from the last
bloom date. However, these fruit were much more variable in colour than the
earliest-set (oldest) fruit, raising the concern that fruit maturity and/or
quality may not be a consistent function of fruit age.
Keywords flower demography; cohorts; soluble solids;
deg.Brix; titratable acidity; pH; viscosity; Bostwick; tristimulus;
colour; lycopene
H97-34
Received 17 August 1997; accepted 6 April 1998
PDF file of entire paper: medium quality (713K); (scanned from paper original: notes about this process)
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