Fruit color and firmness in tomato hybrids as a function of the alleles rin, nor, norA, ogc and hp

Abstract

The objective of this work was to quantify the effects of tomato ripening mutant alleles rin, nor and norA in fruit shelf life and in the internal and external fruit color, and the possible effects of their joint deployment with alleles that enhance fruit color ogc and hp. A randomized complete block design trial with three replications was used to test twelve tomato genotypes (all in genotypic background Floradade), which comprised four inbred lines (Floradade-normal genotype, TOM-559-norA/norA, TOM-613-nor/nor and TOM-614-rin/rin) and eight hybrids [F1(TOM-559 x TOM-613)-nor/norA, F1(FloraDade x TOM-559)-nor+/norA, F1(FloraDade x TOM-613)-nor+/nor, F1(FloraDade x TOM-614)-rin+/rin, F1(TOM-559 x TOM-614)-rin+/rin nor+/norA, F1(TOM-613 x TOM-614)-rin+/rin nor+/nor, F1(TOM-591 x TOM-614)-rin+/rin nor+/norA ogc+/ogc and F1(TOM-589 x TOM-614)-rin+/rin nor+/norA ogc+/ogc hp+/hp]. Our results indicate that deployment of the double heterozygous combination rin+/rin nor+/norA is effective towards improving fruit shelf life, not only with relation to the normal genotype, but also relatively to the single heterozygous genotypes rin+/rin or nor+/norA. Possible deleterious effects of the double combination rin+/rin nor+/norA on external and on internal fruit color are similar to those presented by the single heterozygous genotype rin+/rin (widely deployed in commercial hybrids), and may be attenuated by simultaneous deployment of alelles ogc and hp in the combination rin+/rin nor+/norA ogc+/ogc hp+/hp.