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RESEARCH PRODUCT

Relationship between radial and concentric cracking of tomato fruit

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description

Abstract A study with 62 genotypes was carried out to establish correlations existing between the percentages of fruits showing concentric cracks of more or less than 2 cm and radial cracks of more or less than 2 cm, considering both early and total production. Over a determined productive period, the susceptibility to form large or small cracks was controlled by the same genetic system (rG = 0.89 – 0.95), yet there was a genetic difference between susceptibility to radial and concentric cracking (rG = 0.53 – 0.68). Genetic systems for susceptibility to radial and concentric cracking seemed to show similarly over the first harvesting and over the total productive period ( r G ⋍ 1 ). Environmental agents that favour cracking were variable according to the moment of the productive cycle, and generated weak environmental correlations (rE = 0.30 – 0.58) between the cracking of early and total production. This effect was particularly marked when considering fruits with different type of cracking, radial or concentric, in which case environmental correlations were not significatively different from 0.00.