Tomato quality starts with the soil

摘要

Quality in tomatoes means different things to different people. Dr. Charlie Rick, the late U.C. Davis geneticist and leading expert on the tomato, said that if you wanted a great tasting tomato you should grow it yourself and pick it fresh. In production agriculture, quality often extends beyond flavor to appearance and nutritional quality. For example, the most important limitation to cost efficiency in production and processing of tomatoes intended for whole-peel and diced products are physiological disorders that affect the color of the fruit. Because the pigments that make tomato fruit red are pro-vitamin A and lycopene, poor color translates into less nutritious fruit. Color disorders affect as much as 65 percent of the processing tomato crop.Therefore the potential cost to farmers and processors is high.