Adams, 1988; Holder and Christensen, 1988; Cornish, 1992; Soliman
and Doss, 1992). But cultivar reactions did not always coincide (Caro
et al., 1991). Therefore the longlife tomato cultivar ‘Vanessa’ and the
round tomato type ‘Counter’ were cultivated in different concentrations
of nutrient solutions, controlled by the electric conductivity (1, 3.5 and
6 dS/m). Each cultivar and treatment was grown in a separate row, repli-
cated three times.
Sugar and Acid
The content of titratable acid was determined by potentiometric titra-
tion with 0.1 M NaOH, LMBG (1983). Sugar content was detected as
glucose and fructose (Boehringer Mannheim, 1986) and summarized to
reducing sugars.
Texture
Fruit firmness was measured using a deformation test. A force was
applied to the calyx end of the fruit by a flat plate moving at a crosshead
speed of 50 mm/min. Displacement at the force of 10 N was recorded
and the pressure calculated using Equation (10.1):
P (10.1)
Ppressure firmness (kPa)
Fdeformation force (N)
hfruit height (mm)
ddisplacement (mm)
PiPuncture force was recorded as maximum force (N) applied at the
blossom end of the fruit using a probe with 3.2 mm in diameter and a
crosshead speed of 50 mm/min.
Sensory Description
The Quantitative Descriptive Analysis (QDA) was conducted by a
trained panel (Stone et al., 1974; Stone and Sidel, 1993) assessing 58
attributes including ‘sweet note’ and ‘juicy’ while chewing under de-
fined conditions in single cabins. Scores were made on unstructured line
F* 1000
[(h/2)^2 (h/2d/2)^2 ] * 2 *