Biotechnology of Fruit Quality - Fruit Ripening: Physiology, Signalling and Genomics - page 267

16

Biotechnology of Fruit Quality

Avtar K. Handa, 1 * Raheel Anwar 1,2 and Autar K. Mattoo 3
1 Department of Horticulture and Landscape Architecture, Purdue
University, West Lafayette, IN, USA; 2 Institute of Horticultural Sciences,
University of Agriculture, Faisalabad, Punjab, Pakistan; 3 Sustainable
Agricultural Systems Laboratory, USDA-ARS,Beltsville Agricultural
Research Center, Beltsville, MD, USA

16.1 Introduction

organic farming adds another set of
desirable parameters to fruit quality (Lind
et al. , 2003; Reich, 2012). Enhanced
phytonutrient levels add to the overall
quality of fruit crops (Mattoo et al. , 2010),
although consumers expect fruits at the
same time to be free of unfavourable
chemicals such as cyanogenic glucosides,
oxalates, heavy metals, dioxane and
pesticides, and contaminations due to
microbes.
Following domestication of crop plants,
the traditional breeding approaches have
extensively improved certain qualities of
horticultural crops. In the last three
decades, several new tools, especially
quantitative trait locus (QTL) mapping,
have allowed identifi cation of regions of
the genome associated with particular
phenotypic traits (Grandillo et al. , 1999;
Seymour et al. , 2002; Causse et al. , 2007).
Genomic tools such as chromosome
walking, DNA sequencing and bioinfor-
matics have further facilitated isolation,
identifi cation and characterization of the
genomic regions controlling fruit quality
parameters. In addition, an understanding
of the molecular basis of impaired ripen-
ing

Fruit and vegetable crops are the major
dietary source of vitamins, antioxidants
and minerals and have the potential not
only to ameliorate physiological disorders
but also to decrease the incidence of human
diseases such as cancer. Consequently,
consumption of fruits and vegetables has
increased in recent years, further increas-
ing their global demand. Consumers expect
good-quality fruit to be fl avourful, succu-
lent, juicy and nutritional, in addition to
being attractive in size and appearance.
Other consumer-desirable characteristics of
fruits include crispness, chewiness and
oiliness. However, for the fruit handler,
shipper and retailer, the desirable fruit
quality attributes include being less prone
to handling and shipping damages, slow
softening during storage and longer shelf-
life, without affecting consumer appeal.
Fruit processors consider better-quality
fruit to have a higher proportion of solids,
appropriate rheological properties, toler-
ance to mechanical processing including
during peeling or crushing, and prolonged
maintenance of the processed products
during marketing. A recent trend towards in different tomato ( Solanum