Tomato quality as influenced by preharvest factors

Tomato quality is a multi-faceted trait, involving many processes at the plant and fruit level, which depend on interactions between cultural practices, genetic and environmental factors. This review focusses on tomato quality as influenced by pre-harvest factors, and quality is defined from the consumer's point of view, Le. through fruit size or fresh mass, colour, taste, flavour, texture and health value. Tomato is a model plant for biologist and the second fruit consumed worldwide. The mechanisms involved in tomato fruit quality have been extensively investigated by physiologists and geneticists, and the responses to climatic and cultural practices have been widely described. Yet, our ability to manage and improve fruit quality in a context of global change will rely on our capacity to integrate knowledge's and anticipate interactions among genotype, environment and cultural practices. The recent development of process-based models of fruit quality may help us for this challenging issue. Several models of tomato growth and quality are reviewed here, as well as their potential application for the design of ideotypes, i.e. conceptual plants that are expected to perform in specific environments.