Differential response to environmental and nutritional factors of high-quality tomato varieties.

The effect of salinity and silicon treatments on the marketable quality of four Marmande tomato varieties was investigated through conventional quality attributes and (1)H HRMAS NMR spectroscopy. Following variations in ripening through the content of GABA deduced from NMR was crucial for understanding the effects of environmental and nutritional factors. NMR data also lead to a new taste index, which increases from December to January. For Raf, Delizia and Conquista varieties, it was associated to ripening. In Tigre tomatoes the change, exclusively due to the decrease in sourness, does not affect the GABA content. The effect of the harvest day was more pronounced than treatments. However, increasing electrical conductivity seems an efficient alternative for improving fruit quality of Raf tomatoes harvest under non-optimal conditions. Silicon addition appears to reinforce the effect of light intensity on the quantity of photoassimilates available to the fruits without a clear effect on organoleptic quality.