Effect Of Carbon Dioxide Enrichment On Tomato Fruit Quality

As an important source of antioxidants and vitamins, tomato is one of the most popular vegetables in the world. Tomato and tomato products have increased due to its nutritional and recently recognized health function. Lycopene from tomato is considered to be the most efficient singlet oxygen quencher among biological carotenoids, and an active substance significantly related to the lower incidence of prostate cancer. As a result, people have paid great attentions to fresh tomatoes and tomato products with high nutrition quality. However, it has been found that tomatoes cultivated in greenhouse were with lower sugar content and in poor color.Some researches reported that the concentration of CO2was the most important factor which affected the quality of tomato. In order to enhance the quality of tomato in greenhouse, we tried to use a CO2enrichment technology with crop-residues and animal-manure to increase the concentration of CO2in greenhouse. The growth of tomato plants and the quality of tomato fruit in different maturity stages were evaluated by physiological parameters, fruit chemical composition and sensory properties. The purpose of this study is to investigate the effect of CO2enrichment on the development and quality of tomato fruits.Our results showed that both the growth of tomato plant and the quality of tomato fruit were obviously improved by CO2enrichment. The tomato plants in greenhouse increased in both height and diameter by CO2enrichment, which is good for the growth of tomato fruits. Besides, CO2enrichment not only enhanced the content of soluble solids, soluble sugar, titratable acid ascorbic acid, sugar-acid ratio, lycopene, and carotenoids, but also increased the production of ethylene and aromatic volatiles. In conclusion, CO2enrichment enhanced the qualities of tomato. Our data also showed that CO2enrichment improved the weight of single tomato fruit up to35.38%,25.55%,42.66%,29.95%at green stage, breaker stage, turning stage, red stage, separately and made the harvest time of tomato10days in advance. The production under CO2enrichment treatment and control were98659kg·hm-2and59372kg·hm-2, respectively. As a result, the production increased by66.17%under CO2enrichment in greenhouse.