Improving tomato quality

Tomato (Solanum lycopersicum L.) is one of the most important vegetable crops grown in both temperate and tropical regions of the world. Ripe tomatoes contain high concentrations of several nutritive quality compounds particularly carotenoids such as lycopene and carotene (provitamin A) and vitamin C. The quality of tomatoes has received close attention in the transition period from quantity to quality-based production in different parts of the world. The book explains the basic breeding approaches for improvement of taste related and nutritive quality characters of tomato. It covers research aspects on genotype level variation for different fruit and fruit quality characters particularly total soluble solids, lycopene and carotene contents; framing a sound sampling technique for screening of tomato genotypes for fruit quality characters; studies on inter-relationships of different plant morphological, fruit and fruit quality characters to identify important fruit quality enhancing characters; studies on the gene action for fruit and fruit quality characters; studies on genetic variation in tomato through total soluble seed proteins and electrophoretic protein analysis.