TZ -OH6
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Location: Mid Ohio

When to pick experiment

In order to determine the best time to pick a tomato I am proposing a forum experiment.


Background:

Many if not most people think that "vine ripened" tomatoes are best, however they are not aware that the official meaning of Vine Ripened means that the tomato has started the rinening process on the vine, not finished it. Vine ripened tomatoes are picked at the Breaker stage, which is just past Mature Green. This gives it time to be shipped while still hard. Fruit picked at the breaker stage or past it do not need the ethlene gas treatment to ripen. At the breaker stage the fruit is cut off from the sap system of the plant by the formation of an absiscion zone across the sap vessels. Because the plant fibers are porus water can still enter the fruit, but no nutrients can enter. For this reason many of us have no problem picking unripe colored fruit and letting them get "table ripe" inside away from the threat of pests and rain splitting. Frankly, it is easier to pick everything every three days than it is to pick table ripe fruit when they are ready. You never grab what looks like a nice ripe tomato and get a hand full of go because it is half rotted. To me these early picked fruit taste wonderful when they are room ripened. However there are many people that say they can tell the difference or that the room ripened ones taste bad. It is very easy to lose patience and eat a fruit that needs a few more days on the counter, so I can see where it may be easy to get the impression that picking table ripe in the field is better.

As I said, I pick unripe colored fruit (early to late pink stage) and am happy with the room ripened flavor, but I ran across a study where a pannel of tasters found that they could detect off flavors in everything from Breaker stage to Pink picked fruit, compared to fruit picked table ripe.

Now, the problem with this study as I see it, and the reason I want some people to help with a new "fun" study is that the fruit in the study were room ripened at 20C (68F), and the temperature for the field ripend fruit was not given. This is a very poor scientific control that would have invalidated the study if they tried to publish it today. Tomatoes are notorious for losing flavor at low temps, and chemical reactions are temperature sensitive so it would be expected that tomatoes ripened at different temperatures (68F vs 88F) and different day/night temperature fluctuations would have different flavors. My own experience is that fruit picked table ripe before the heat of the day taste better than fruit picked hot in the afternoon, and late season fruit ripened in cool weather are not as good as mid season fruit. So, the relatively cool 68F temp of the study could have been responsible for the off taste.

What I plan on doing this summer is to mark three tomatoes from a plant that are at the same stage of ripeness (breaker stage up to pink stage). keep one on the vine, cut one off but hang it in a net bag on the plant (or put it in an open box under the plants) so that it gets the same temperature regime, and bring one inside to ripen out of the sun (no brown bags). I would do several of these 3-fruit sets, and keep notes of daily high and low temps (the ones posted on my yahoo weather forecast or nightly news forecast) and the house room temp.

The outdoor fruit will probably ripen faster because of the high temps so it may be difficult to do side by side taste tests, but I should be able to tell bad from good and identify off tastes etc if the fruit are eaten on different days.

I could do this and tell people what I found, but I don't think as many people would believe me as if several of us in different parts of the country could do this and compare what we find.

A Sharpie fine point permanent marker on the shoulder of the fruit is good for marking variety, color stage when removed from the vine, and date each set of three fruit were chosen.

I'm not sure what to do about flavor ratings. I'll probably just try to follow the flavor ratings of the published study and wing it with whatever comparative notes come to mind.

I probably have another 3 weeks before I have to worry about fruit turning color, but some of you already have the season well under way.

If you are interested in adding some data to this little study these links might help.


https://www.tomatosite.com/index.php?NT=Cultivation&RE=Truss_Timeline

https://postharvest.ucdavis.edu/Produce/ProduceFacts/Veg/full_tomatousdacolor.shtml

https://postharvest.ucdavis.edu/datastorefiles/234-526.pdf

garden5
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Posts: 3062
Joined: Fri Aug 07, 2009 5:40 pm
Location: ohio

Wow, now that sound's like and experiment to try. I've already got a few going on right now: plants planted deep, banana peel in the hole, etc.

The one problem people may find with it is that there were several days in-between tastes. it would be best to find tomatoes that were at different stages of ripening and time it so they would all be ready to eat at the same time. Of course, this would take a few tries with each method to determine how long each took to ripen from a particular stage.

TZ -OH6
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Posts: 2097
Joined: Fri Jul 25, 2008 7:27 pm
Location: Mid Ohio

You are right. With many fruit marked over time you could always compare whatever was ripening inside or in the box to a field ripened fruit. Describing a single set of three fruit gets my point across but may not be the most practical way.

731greener101
Cool Member
Posts: 80
Joined: Tue Jul 28, 2009 12:36 pm
Location: West Tennessee Zone 6b

If side by side comparison is not possible by all means have taster write down description of impressions.I would not tell taster of origin to keep them honest.As season moves further along,side by side should be more easily attained.I will try this with family and friends as well.Let's see what this experiment brings.Anyone else game?Greener

Lunacy
Cool Member
Posts: 91
Joined: Tue Mar 30, 2010 9:16 pm
Location: Los Angeles

I will be following this thread, however as this is my first year I don't feel I am organized enough or experienced enough to participate. While I am learning a great deal, I feel I learned enough to know their is a lot I don't know.

User avatar
Ozark Lady
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Posts: 1862
Joined: Tue Jan 05, 2010 5:28 pm
Location: NW Arkansas, USA zone 7A elevation 1561 feet

And after your 20th year gardening, you will really realize how much you have to learn, and how much to relearn, to experiment with etc. It is ongoing learning, you never "arrive" and know it all.



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