Fruit Quality in Tomato

Tomato fruit quality includes physical attributes (size, texture, firmness), sensory traits (sweetness, acidity, and aroma volatiles), color, and nutritional attributes. Over the last two decades, genetic and genomic advances like QTL/GWAS discovery, high-resolution mapping, pangenomes, and genome editing have deciphered the genetic and molecular basis of key traits such as fruit weight, locule number, color, texture, and flavor chemistry. Despite this progress, there are still several challenges in breeding for fruit quality traits. The biggest is balancing shelf life and yield with flavor. Additionally, strong genotype-by-environment effects also make the selection harder. However, with advancements in multi-omics technologies and AI, several emerging strategies have been effectively devised and applied to come up with practical solutions, such as integrating multi-omics with high-throughput phenotyping, deploying targeted alleles via marker-assisted and genomic selection, precision editing, and participatory, consumer-driven evaluation to align selections with market preferences. In this chapter, we describe major fruit-quality traits, summarize recent genomic advances, and outline opportunities and research priorities to breed tomatoes with better sensory and nutritional value while maintaining agronomic performance.