Tomatoes - Crop Post-Harvest: Science and Technology - page 18

temperature sensors are being applied in managing the
logistics of the cold chain by linking temperature moni-
toring to RFID communication, allowing temperature,
time and location data to be transmitted and monitored
during shipping. In the future, any number of biosensors
may be associated with RFID tags to allow real-time
monitoring of quality and safety indicators such as
flavour or stress volatiles.
Tomatoes have received heightened recognition in
recent years for their contribution of flavour and nutrition
to the human diet. In fact, evidence of a direct relationship
between tomato flavour volatile and phytonutrient
abundance has recently been noted (Goff & Klee 2006).
The fact remains, however, that quality traits have been
diluted over time in the quest for improved fruit yield
and field performance. Recently, combined metabolic
and phenotypic analysis of tomato introgression lines
has provided chemical markers that may accelerate the
improvement of tomato fruit quality (Schauer et al . 2006).
Schauer et al . used the strategy of metabolic genomics to
correlate numerous metabolites and fruit quality traits in
crosses of the cultivated tomato variety Roma with wild
Solanum pennellii . This information can be of enormous
importance for tomato improvement by “focus[ing]
breeding strategies and improv[ing] efficiency and
outcome” (Giovannoni 2006).
Joining technologies to detect immature fruit and
manage post-harvest tomato ripening can remove the
incentive to harvest tomatoes before they have developed
their full flavour and nutrition potential. Development
of improved tomato varieties via either conventional
breeding or molecular manipulations promises the avail-
ability of tomatoes in the near future with improved
genetic potential to develop better flavour and nutrition.
As our understanding of how the postharvest environment
can be managed to better maintain or even improve the
nutritional and sensory value of tomatoes, this promise
comes closer to reality.

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