The impact of biological variation on postharvest behaviour of tomato fruit

Using colour change of tomato fruit (Lycopersicon esculentum Mill.) as a case study, a probabilistic kinetic approach is developed to interpret postharvest batch behaviour combining kinetic models describing colour change as a function of time and temperature with the concept of biological age modelled by a random variable. Tomatoes from three cultivars ('Quest', 'Style' and 'Tradiro') were stored at 3 storage temperatures (12, 15 and 18degreesC). Data from these experiments were used to develop a probabilistic kinetic model approach predicting the propagation of biological variation during postharvest. An independent validation experiment on 'Tradiro' tomato stored at 18degreesC showed that the developed approach is able to accurately predict propagation of biological variation during the harvest period postharvest (R-adj(2) = 0.96) based on just the initial colour distribution measured at harvest. (C) 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.