California Fruit and Vegetable

Tag: Vegetables West Magazine

  • Grower-Shippers Asked to Bear Burden of Unsustainable Dilemma of Under-Compensation

    In the past two years, West Coast vegetables growers have been asked to absorb stratospheric aggregate inflationary input costs while at the same time trying to find a way to pass on 20%-30% inflationary costs, presenting them with an unsustainable dilemma. Without a long-term solution to this dilemma, we could all see fewer vegetables finding their way to grocers’ shelves.

    The recently published Bureau of Labor statistics Consumer Price Index (CPI) for August reported food prices increased 11.4% from 2020 to 2021, continuing a now-prolonged trend of the largest 12-month increase since May of 1979. The statistics also highlighted a 1.1% increase over June 2022 and was the seventh consecutive monthly increase of 0.9% or more.

    Moreover, since January 2022, the price of food consumed at home outpaced that of food consumed away from home, up 13.1% in July 2022 versus July 2021. In reviewing of the CPI-U data from the past 16 months when inflation began to rise to their current 40-year high, the CPI “Food” category has either been in alignment with or slightly higher than the “overall” monthly CPI category. And, as anyone who has purchased food staples such a poultry or beef or eggs can attest, they’re record prices over the past 18-plus months. In fact, the CPI’s food-at-home category continues to steadily increase, driving the CPI’s overall increases in the food category.

    As if circumstances in inability of cost pass-through was challenging enough, the growers in the “Salad Bowl of the World” have endured below break-even pricing on many commodities for the past two-plus years. Iceberg lettuce’s open market FOB pricing is a prime example. Against the backdrop of 20% to 30% production cost increases, the iceberg markets over the same timeline have been a losing enterprise.

    In reviewing the USDA agriculture marketing service dating back to calendar year 2020, open market carton iceberg lettuce pricing only experienced six months of pricing reflecting above break-even levels. The data for 2021 reflected far worse market pricing conditions as only three months out of the calendar year showed profitability in iceberg lettuce pricing.

    The 2022 iceberg lettuce open market conditions to-date are reflecting only three of the eight expired months at profitable levels, although it is widely accepted that over 60% of day-to-day iceberg lettuce is sold via contract pricing. However, the commodity portion of daily production represents a significant investment for both growers and shippers.

    Providing further context on how poor commodity lettuce open-pricing conditions have been the past two years in relation to the Bureau’s CPI, from January through June of this year, the monthly year-over-year lettuce CPI category reflected increases ranging from a low of 7.9% to a high of 12.7%. Five of the six months reported accounting for an aggregated approximately per-case price of $3.60, “below break-even!” Keep in mind that many commodity iceberg deals are structured where both grower and shipper have joint equity.

    However, there are some positive developments that should benefit growers. Earlier this summer, the shipper/processor community successfully renegotiated favorable finished-goods price increases in contracts with many big box retailers. Within all finished-goods pricing resides the cost of raw materials used in the production of the finished offering. This being the case, the year-over incremental input costs which have not been met, theoretically have been accounted for and the input cost pass-through negotiations should reflect the finished-goods contract price increases. Stay posted.

    On the surface, it might seems that these types of CPI increases would be a boon for growers. However, from the West Coast vegetable grower’s perspective, this data represents a disconnect from the reality of profitability. In analyzing the CPI data, the relevance of what the statistics bares is proof of what this blog has been highlighting for months.

    Beginning in January 2020 and continuing through today, the aggregate inflationary input costs which West Coast vegetables growers continue to primarily absorb has been in the stratospheric range of 20 to 30%. This data reinforces the unsustainable dilemma of under-compensation making its way “back to the ranch.” And, until there is a long-term solution that enables growers’ margins that will enable them to be sustainable, the likelihood grocery shelves stocked with fewer vegetables can be a reality. — By United Vegetable Growers Cooperative

  • 2021 Pacific Northwest Potato Production & Sales Announced

    Growers were happy to see potato prices rise overall in the Pacific Northwest last year. The final value of Idaho’s 2021 potato crop sold was $1.04 billion, up 14 percent from 2020. The marketing year average price for potatoes in Idaho was $8.46 per cwt, up $1.18 from last year. In Oregon, the 2021 potato crop sold was valued at $218 million, up 10 percent from last year. The potato price was $9.02 per cwt, up $1.02 from last year. Washington’s 2021 potato crop sold was valued at $666 million, down 5 percent from 2020. The marketing year average price for fall potatoes was $7.75 per cwt, up $0.19 from the previous year.

    In Idaho, potato production for 2021 totaled 132 million cwt, down 2 percent from 2020. In Oregon, production was 26.3 million cwt., down 3 percent from 2020. Production in Washington was 91.9 million cwt., down 8 percent from 2020. The combined production for the 3 states was 61 percent of U.S. potato production in 2021.

    Processors in Idaho and Malheur County Oregon used a total of 83,070 thousand cwt in 2021, down 8 percent from 2020. Washington and Oregon, excluding Malheur County, processors used 94,882 thousand cwt during 2021, up 6 percent from the previous year.

  • Texas A&M AgriLife Research to Improve Organic Spinach Production

    Despite the greatly increasing consumer interest for organic spinach in the U.S. and worldwide, production is not keeping pace with demand.

    Vijay Joshi, Ph.D., will lead research on a three-year project to improve organic spinach productivity. (Texas A&M AgriLife photo)

    To help overcome some of the challenges facing organic spinach production, Vijay Joshi, Ph.D., a Texas A&M AgriLife Research plant systems physiologist at the Texas A&M AgriLife Research and Extension Center in Uvalde, was recently awarded a grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture, NIFA.

    Joshi, also an associate professor in the Texas A&M Department of Horticultural Sciences, will lead the three-year research project, titled “Systems Approach to Maximize Organic Spinach Productivity.” The project is funded under NIFA’s Organic Agriculture Research and Extension Initiative. An initial first-year funding of more than $450,000 was provided for the project, with total funding to be about $1.5 million.

    Project collaborators include Ainong Shi, Ph.D., associate professor in the Department of Horticulture at University of Arkansas; Micaela Colley, program director for the Organic Seed Alliance, Port Townsend, Washington; and Alice Formiga, a professor of practice in the Oregon State University Department of Horticulture.

    Addressing Problems of Low-Input Organic Spinach Production

    Spinach, the most popular nutrient-rich staple vegetable, can have high pesticide residues when grown conventionally. Organic production eliminates the use of inorganic fertilizers and pesticides, but most spinach varieties used for low-input organic production are poorly adapted and cause substantial yield gaps as compared to conventional farming.

    “Organic spinach growers need varieties adapted to growing conditions and qualities demanded by consumers,” Joshi said.

    Nutrient acquisition, abiotic stresses like extreme temperature, nutritional attributes and limited seed availability are critical challenges in organic spinach production. To help with these challenges, the project will expand knowledge of potentially beneficial microbes.

    “This project will include developing varieties with an improved neutracitical profile and nitrogen-use efficiency,” Joshi said. “It will also seek to improve our understanding of the role of microbes in the soil and spinach roots and leaves, adapted exclusively to low-input organic production.”

    He said another challenge is how to enhance seed production and availability.

    “We will create a breeding model to develop varieties with higher organic seed productivity,” Joshi said. “We will also be investigating the use of natural variation in spinach germplasm. This will be accomplished through genome-wide association analysis and genomic prediction.”

    Project Expectations

    Joshi said the results of this project enhance efforts develop organic spinach varieties to enhance productivity and quality.

    “A productive research project is one that would ensure high-quality, nutritionally beneficial and safe food for society produced through sustainable agriculture,” Joshi said. “This new research will certainly be in keeping with that goal.”

    Project results will be disseminated nationally through eOrganic, Organic Seed Alliance and other university-initiated outreach programs, agricultural publications and field days.

  • A New Way to Battle Powdery Mildew in Strawberry

    Strawberry farmers worldwide may get help from new University of Florida research that shows a way to battle one of the fruit’s fiercest foes.

    The key: combine genomic data with phenomics. The genome amounts to all the DNA in an organism. Phenomics is the study of plant growth, performance and composition. Through phenomics, scientists use DNA to measure plant traits. In a newly published study, UF/IFAS scientists found a new way to help strawberry growers battle powdery mildew.

    Ronald Tapia, a doctoral student at the Gulf Coast Research and Education Center (GCREC), led the research. Tapia worked under the supervision of Seonghee Lee, an assistant professor and Vance Whitaker, an associate professor, both in horticultural sciences.

    Ronald Tapia, a doctoral student in horticultural sciences, points a sensor at a strawberry plant at the UF/IFAS Gulf Coast Research and Education Center. Credit: Courtesy, Ronald Tapia, UF/IFAS.

    Prior research already showed this method detects diseases in other crops, Whitaker said.

    “We already have a lot of technology that helps us understand the genes in strawberries, but those genes still need to be connected to their actual effect on the plant – in this case how the plant resists powdery mildew disease,” said Whitaker. “That’s why we combined genomics and phenomics. Any technology that reduces the cost or increases the speed of evaluating any trait — like disease resistance — in our breeding trials can help us out.”

    Whitaker cautions this method is not guaranteed to work in all situations, but he’s hopeful.

    To reach their findings, Whitaker and his colleagues conducted a field trial of strawberry plants at GCREC. They took DNA from each strawberry and looked at its genes.

    Vance Whitaker, associate professor of horticultural sciences at the UF/IFAS Gulf Coast Research and Education Center. Credit: Tyler Jones, UF/IFAS photography.

    Then they rated the disease using two methods:

    • Their own eyes, which gives them a visual scale. The plants were evaluated the traditional way by eye, recording the severity of the disease, rated on a scale of 0 to 6 for each plant.
    • A handheld sensor. Whitaker and his colleagues used the device to detect wavelengths of light that you can’t see with your eyes. The wavelengths gave researchers data about the health and disease status of strawberry plants.

    “We showed that by combining the DNA information (genomics) and the spectroscopy information (phenomics), we can predict the visual rating of disease resistance surprisingly well,” Whitaker said. “In the future, we can eliminate the work of the visual rating.”

    The finding should help scientists assist strawberry growers globally as they look for powdery mildew in their crop. While Florida produces most of the nation’s domestic winter crop on about 11,000 acres, California produces strawberries nearly year-round. Nationwide, strawberries are valued at about $2.2 billion. — By Brad Buck, University of Florida, Institute of Food & Agricultural Sciences

  • Wild Tomato Genome will Benefit Domesticated Cousins

    A team of researchers has assembled a reference genome for Solanum lycopersicoides, a wild relative of the cultivated tomato, and developed web-based tools to help plant researchers and breeders improve the crop.

    Solanum lycopersicoides (S. lycopersicoides) harbors a gene making the plant resistant to a particular strain of bacterial speck disease. The gene could be introduced into cultivated tomatoes to protect them from the pathogen.

    That discovery led Boyce Thompson Institute researchers to sequence the plant’s genome and create online resources to facilitate the discovery of more genes that could improve tomatoes.

    “There wasn’t even really a discussion about whether to sequence Solanum lycopersicoides, it was just obvious to do it,” said Susan Strickler, director of the BTI Computational Biology Center (BCBC). Strickler is co-corresponding author of the paper describing the S. lycopersicoides genome, which was published in The Plant Journal on May 18.

    Wild relatives of crops are becoming increasingly valuable to plant researchers and breeders. During the process of domestication, crops tend to lose many genes, but wild relatives often retain genes that could be useful – such as genes that confer resistance to drought and disease.

    In their study, the researchers demonstrated the value of the new genome by finding several candidate genes associated with compounds – phenolics and carotenoids – that contribute to the species’ color, flavor and nutrition, as well as other genes associated with disease resistance.

    Perhaps more importantly, a larger goal of the project was to make the S. lycopersicoides reference genome as widely accessible and useful to the scientific community as possible.

    “These kinds of data are added to the National Center for Biotechnology Information repository as a general requirement, and that’s important, but not everyone is a bioinformaticist or has access to bioinformatics resources to analyze the data,” said Adrian Powell, assistant director of BCBC and a first author on the paper.

    “To increase access and ease of exploring the genome, we developed web-based tools and components that researchers beyond our project team could use and add to,” he said.

    One tool is a S. lycopersicoides genome browser available on the Sol Genomics Network website, which serves as community resource and repository for tomatoes and other species in the Solanaceae family. Powell said the browser can aid early exploratory studies of the wild tomato species as well as more advanced studies.

    Another tool is an S. lycopersicoides expression atlas, which allows users to analyze RNA sequencing data and visualize which genes are expressed in different plant tissues and under different conditions. “The atlas is based on code first developed for the cultivated tomato, but now we have a version for the wild species,” Powell said.

    These tools, combined with the new reference genome, will help researchers analyze hybrids of the wild tomato and cultivated tomato more readily than they could before, and they will also help researchers who are studying the wild species for its own sake, he said.

    For example, the reference genome could facilitate genome-wide association studies (GWAS) on multiple S. lycopersicoides accessions, to assess genetic diversity of the species and identify candidate genes for the traits breeders might want to introduce into cultivated tomatoes, such as drought tolerance, Powell said.

    Co-authors of the paper include BTI professors Lukas Mueller, Greg Martin, Zhangjun Fei and Jim Giovannoni. Martin is also a professor in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences (CALS), and Mueller, Fei and Giovannoni are adjunct professors in CALS. Giovannoni is also a research molecular biologist with the U.S. Department of Agriculture Agricultural Research Service (USDA-ARS).

    The study was supported in part by grants from the joint ERA CAPS Regulatome project, the National Science Foundation, the Triad Foundation, the Max-Planck-Society and the European Union project PlantaSyst, and Germany’s Federal Ministry of Education and Research. — By Michael J. Haas, Boyce Thompson Institute, Cornell University

  • AI Helps Detect Watermelon Disease Quickly, Accurately

    If you savor a juicy watermelon in the scorching summer heat, farmers toil to meet your tastes. But, like all farmers, those who produce watermelons seek ways to control diseases, so they don’t lose all or part of their crops. The needs of growers drive Yiannis Ampatzidis to use artificial intelligence to detect pathogens early and accurately.

    One such disease, downy mildew, spreads like wildfire, said Ampatzidis, an Associate Professor of Ag & Biological Engineering at the University of Florida.

    For a new study, Ampatzidis used AI to help find downy mildew.

    In newly published research, Ampatzidis used spectral reflectance —  the energy a surface reflects at specific wavelengths — of plant canopies and machine learning to quickly and efficiently detect downy mildew in several stages of the disease.

    Hopefully, farmers can take advantage of this technology.

    “If left unchecked, downy mildew can destroy a farmer’s entire crop within days. That’s why it gets the nickname ‘wildfire.’ It spreads rapidly and scorches leaves,” said Ampatzidis, a faculty member at the Southwest Florida Research and Education Center.

    Ampatzidis and his research team successfully detected downy mildew in several stages of severity.

    “Our most important result was finding downy mildew in its earliest stage, which is critical to growers’ ability to manage this disease,” he said.

    Ampatzidis and his research team developed two methods, utilizing hyperspectral imaging and AI — one in the laboratory and the other using UAVs (drones) for field detection.

    Downy mildew does not affect stems or fruit directly. But it can defoliate the plants, leaving fruit exposed to sun damage, making it unmarketable.

    As long as consumers continue to buy watermelon — and those who grow the fruit want to reap a good harvest — Ampatzidis will continue to find ways to find pathogens that could damage the fruit.

    As next steps in his research, Ampatzidis wants to develop a simple and inexpensive drone-based sensor to improve detection of downy mildew in watermelon plants. — By Brad Buck, University of Florida, Institute of Food & Agricultural Sciences

  • Anaerobically Digested Dairy Manure to Serve as Liquid Fertilizer for Tomatoes

    Researchers at UC Davis have found a new, safe way to treat dairy manure for use as a high quality, organic liquid fertilizer on fresh produce crops.  Watch this interview with Ruihong Zhang from UC Davis as she shares the results of their studies and read more in California Dairy Magazine.

    Please thank this video’s sponsor Clean Energy for their industry support.

  • Getting to the Root of How to Grow Cowpea in Difficult, Dry Conditions

    Cowpea is an important crop in many parts of the world, especially sub-Saharan Africa. It is resilient and can grow in areas with little rainfall and low-quality soils. But as hardy as it is, cowpea yields can decrease by drought and low levels of soil phosphorus.

    A high-resolution root hair image taken from a cowpea seedling root sample. The image was taken after 14 days of growth on germination papers. Root hairs play important roles in cowpea tolerance to drought and poor soils. Credit: Saba Mohammed

    In a recent study, researchers determined cowpea root characteristics that could help the plants grow better in drier, low-phosphorus soils.

    “Developing cowpea varieties that can produce optimally under stressful conditions is vital,” says Saba Mohammed, lead author of the study at Ahmadu Bello University in Zaria, Nigeria. “These resilient cowpea varieties can help make more people food and nutrition secure.”

    The study was published in Crop Science, a publication of the Crop Science Society of America.

    Cowpeas are a key source of calories for millions of people across the world. They are rich in protein and other nutrients. Cowpea plants also have a variety of other uses. They can serve as animal fodder and green manure.

    Microbes in cowpea root nodules can increase soil fertility. These microbes make atmospheric nitrogen available to plants in the soil – a process called nitrogen fixation. Nitrogen fixation can be beneficial for farmers who cannot afford nitrogen-based fertilizers.

    Most cowpeas production is in semi-arid regions. Harsh environmental conditions and poor soils often hamper yields. “Our work established that certain root characteristics increased the yield of cowpea plants under drought or low soil phosphorus conditions,” says Mohammed.

    These root features include longer primary roots and higher numbers of lateral roots emerging from primary roots. Root hairs also play important roles in cowpea tolerance to drought and poor soils.

    For example, cowpea plants with longer, denser root hairs had higher yields when grown in low-phosphorus conditions. “That suggests these root hair features play crucial roles in acquiring phosphorus from sub-optimal soils,” says Mohammed.

    Scientists have long known that roots are a key part of how plants adapt to difficult environmental conditions. “The root system is half of the whole plant system,” says Mohammed. “Yet, it has been relatively under-explored in finding solutions to farming constraints.”

    Root systems have diverse strategies for extracting resources from soil. “For instance, plants with deeper roots produce better than those with shallow roots under limited water conditions,” he says. “On the other hand, those with shallow roots may be more suited to soils with suboptimal nutrients.”

    A field experiment on cowpea at the Institute for Agricultural Research in Minjibir Agricultural Research Station, Kano State, Nigeria. Cowpea crops are resilient and can grow in areas with little rainfall and low-quality soils. Credit: Saba Mohammed

    That’s because nutrients – like phosphorus – are often concentrated in the top layer of soil.

    For cowpea plants growing in dry and nutrient-limited soils, roots need to go deeper and spread wide and shallow.

    “Our study shows that we can focus on cowpea varieties with longer taproots for drought tolerance and higher numbers of shallower basal roots to extract soil nutrients,” says Mohammed.

    While root architecture can provide valuable information, examining root features of mature plants can be a time-consuming and exhausting process. Mohammed says it is easier and more economical to phenotype roots at the seedling stage.

    The study showed that examining roots of cowpea seedlings could help identify root features in mature plants that are beneficial for growth in challenging environments.

    “Our goal is to use the study results to breed new cowpea varieties,” says Mohammed. “These new varieties would perform optimally under limited water and low soil phosphorus conditions.”

    Many small-scale and subsistence farmers may be unable to afford phosphate fertilizers. The new cowpea varieties Mohammed describes would benefit these farmers tremendously. However, he explains that developing new varieties with desired root features can also be a valuable resource in systems where intensive irrigation and fertilizers are used. These cowpea varieties can help reduce production costs and minimize environmental pollution from excessive fertilizer use.

    American Society of Agronomy, Soil Science Society of America, Crop Science Society of America: Collectively, these Societies represent more than 12,000 individual members around the world. Members are researchers and professionals in the areas of growing our world’s food supply while protecting our environment. Together we work toward solutions to advance scientific knowledge in the areas of agronomy, crop science, and soil science.

  • Artificial Photosynthesis Can Produce Food Without Sunshine

    Photosynthesis has evolved in plants for millions of years to turn water, carbon dioxide, and the energy from sunlight into plant biomass and the foods we eat. This process, however, is very inefficient, with only about 1% of the energy found in sunlight ending up in the plant. Scientists at UC Riverside and the University of Delaware have found a way to bypass the need for biological photosynthesis altogether and create food independent of sunlight by using artificial photosynthesis.

    Plants are growing in complete darkness in an acetate medium that replaces biological photosynthesis. (Marcus Harland-Dunaway/UCR)

    The research, published in Nature Food, uses a two-step electrocatalytic process to convert carbon dioxide, electricity, and water into acetate, the form of the main component of vinegar. Food-producing organisms then consume acetate in the dark to grow. Combined with solar panels to generate the electricity to power the electrocatalysis, this hybrid organic-inorganic system could increase the conversion efficiency of sunlight into food, up to 18 times more efficient for some foods.

    “With our approach we sought to identify a new way of producing food that could break through the limits normally imposed by biological photosynthesis,” said corresponding author Robert Jinkerson, a UC Riverside assistant professor of chemical and environmental engineering.

    In order to integrate all the components of the system together, the output of the electrolyzer was optimized to support the growth of food-producing organisms. Electrolyzers are devices that use electricity to convert raw materials like carbon dioxide into useful molecules and products. The amount of acetate produced was increased while the amount of salt used was decreased, resulting in the highest levels of acetate ever produced in an electrolyzer to date.

    Experiments showed that a wide range of food-producing organisms can be grown in the dark directly on the acetate-rich electrolyzer output, including green algae, yeast, and fungal mycelium that produce mushrooms. Producing algae with this technology is approximately fourfold more energy efficient than growing it photosynthetically. Yeast production is about 18-fold more energy efficient than how it is typically cultivated using sugar extracted from corn.

    “We were able to grow food-producing organisms without any contributions from biological photosynthesis. Typically, these organisms are cultivated on sugars derived from plants or inputs derived from petroleum—which is a product of biological photosynthesis that took place millions of years ago. This technology is a more efficient method of turning solar energy into food, as compared to food production that relies on biological photosynthesis,” said Elizabeth Hann, a doctoral candidate in the Jinkerson Lab and co-lead author of the study.

    The potential for employing this technology to grow crop plants was also investigated. Cowpea, tomato, tobacco, rice, canola, and green pea were all able to utilize carbon from acetate when cultivated in the dark.

    By liberating agriculture from complete dependence on the sun, artificial photosynthesis opens the door to countless possibilities for growing food under the increasingly difficult conditions imposed by anthropogenic climate change. Drought, floods, and reduced land availability would be less of a threat to global food security if crops for humans and animals grew in less resource-intensive, controlled environments. Crops could also be grown in cities and other areas currently unsuitable for agriculture, and even provide food for future space explorers.

    “Using artificial photosynthesis approaches to produce food could be a paradigm shift for how we feed people. By increasing the efficiency of food production, less land is needed, lessening the impact agriculture has on the environment. And for agriculture in non-traditional environments, like outer space, the increased energy efficiency could help feed more crew members with less inputs,” said Jinkerson. This approach to food production was submitted to NASA’s Deep Space Food Challenge where it was a Phase I winner. — By Holly Ober, UC Riverside

    About UC Riverside

    The University of California, Riverside is a doctoral research university, a living laboratory for groundbreaking exploration of issues critical to Inland Southern California, the state and communities around the world. Reflecting California’s diverse culture, UCR’s enrollment is more than 26,000 students. The campus opened a medical school in 2013 and has reached the heart of the Coachella Valley by way of the UCR Palm Desert Center. The campus has an annual impact of more than $2.7 billion on the U.S. economy. To learn more, visit www.ucr.edu.

  • An Aromatic Tomato Could be Looming – a La Heirloom Varieties

    You can scarcely find a tasty, heirloom tomato in the grocery store. But University of Florida scientists helped discover a way to enhance tomato smell and taste. Breeding efforts over the last half century have emphasized traits that are important to producers – yield, disease resistance, appearance and post-harvest shelf life among them.

    While those traits are important, modern commercial varieties tend to fall short of the flavor potential shown in older varieties. But consumers want tomatoes that taste and smell good.

    Indeed, in a study published in 2012, consumers who taste-tested several tomato varieties preferred tomatoes with high levels of nitrogenous volatiles.

    For years, consumers have lamented what they deem as the bland taste of tomatoes. Any flavor you savor when you bite into the fruit comes from a combination of many aroma compounds. Some of those compounds contain nitrogen, and they add fruity, floral and tomato vine profiles to the flavor mix. Working on an international team of scientists, two UF/IFAS researchers helped find a route to several important nitrogen-containing tomato flavor compounds.

    In a newly published study, scientists showed that five of the compounds are part of a biochemical pathway for synthesis of these important flavor compounds.

    Using a closely related fruit, Solanum pennellii, scientists found a site on a chromosome essential to produce detectable nitrogenous volatiles in tomatoes, said Denise Tieman, a UF/IFAS research assistant professor of horticultural sciences.

    That data led scientists to identify a step in the pathway to nitrogen-containing flavor compounds.

    “Now that we know how these compounds are made in tomatoes, we can identify varieties that have the heirloom version of the enzyme and high levels of these flavor compounds, and we can breed this trait into modern tomatoes to improve flavor,” Tieman said.

    Tomatoes produce many aroma volatiles, including nitrogen-containing volatiles that are relatively rare in other fruits.

    Since these volatiles are active at low concentrations, increasing their levels does not impact yield or fruit size.

    Tomatoes are the most valuable fruit produced worldwide. Indeed, in 2020, American farmers harvested about 12,600 tons of fresh market tomatoes and 11 million tons of processing tomatoes from 273,00 acres. That adds up to $1 billion in revenue. Florida harvested 26,000 areas of tomatoes during the 2018-2019 season, valued at almost $426 million.

    The new research, published recently in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, was led by Harry Klee, a UF/IFAS professor emeritus of horticultural sciences and Charles Goulet, a professor of plant science at Universite Laval in Quebec City, Canada. — By Brad Buck, University of Florida Institute of Food & Agricultural Sciences