5

Chilling Injury in Tomato Fruit

Palash Biswas
Centre for Postharvest and Refrigeration Research, Massey
University, Palmerston North, New Zealand

Andrew R. East, Errol W. Hewett,andJulian A. Heyes
Centre for Postharvest and Refrigeration Research, Massey
University, Palmerston North, New Zealand

ABSTRACT

Fruit of tomato (Solanum lycopersicum) exhibit a range of chilling injury (CI)
symptoms following exposure to low, non-freezing temperature (≤ 13 ◦C) for a
period of time. The primary event of chilling damage is an initial, rapid re-
sponse to low temperature that is reversible. The sustained damage from the
primary event causes a cascade of secondary effects that display as various in-
jury symptoms. This study reviews physiological and molecular mechanisms
for inducing CI symptoms in fresh fruit with a specific focus on tomato CI symp-
toms. A model is presented that demonstrates chilling thresholds for both tem-
perature and duration for different chilling symptoms. Characteristic chilling
injury symptoms such as aroma loss, blotchy ripening, excessive softening, pit-
ting, susceptibility to decay, electrolyte leakage, and failure to ripen require pro-
gressively lower temperatures and longer exposure times before they become
noticeable. Mechanisms that may explain this sequence are proposed.

KEYWORDS:aroma; blotchy ripening; chilling stress; decay; ion leakage;
Solanum lycopersicum

ABBREVIATIONS

1-MCP 1-Methylcyclopropene
AAT Alcohol acyltransferase

Horticultural Reviews, Volume 44, First Edition. Edited by Jules Janick.
© 2017 Wiley-Blackwell. Published 2017 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

229