Rapid Phenotyping of the Tomato Fruit Model, Micro-Tom, with a Portable VIS-NIR Spectrometer

Tomato (Solanum lycopersicum) quality traits such as juice soluble solid content (Brix), juice pH, color parameters (Hue and Chroma), firmness and water content, are critical factors for fruit quality assessment. The need for screening very large numbers of fruit has led to the development of a high-throughput method using visible-near infrared (VIS-NIR) spectrometry. We are reporting here a set of results obtained with a portable spectrometer using the 350-2500 nm range, showing good prediction of the quality traits cited above, over a wide range of developmental stages from immature green to ripe tomato fruit, cv. Micro-Tom. This is a rather good set of quality traits compared to previous publications predicting tomato quality with VIS-NIR spectrometry, and the prediction is robust, as it was obtained by grouping sets of different operators. This would be a useful tool to phenotype hundreds of Micro-Tom per day, making it possible to follow the dynamics of the described parameters on growing fruits. Thus the method can be used to study the biochemistry and physiology of fruit development in planta.