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Article: Tomato Model Shows Pathway To Turn Hard, Premature Crops Soft, Tasty On Market Shelf.
- Article from:
- BIOWORLD Today
- Article date:
- November 4, 2009
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2009 A Thomson Healthcare Company. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Science Editor
In the plant world, fruit is an ovary. This is not a fanciful figure of speech, but the botanical description of every fruitEs form and function.
Consider the familiar tomato (Lycopersicum esculentum). Its fleshy integument packages rows of ovum-like seeds awaiting germination. New tomatoes growing on the vine are hard and green, a tactile and visual signal to the birds and beasts waiting to eat them that the time is not ripe literally -- for consumption.
Once sunshine and internal ripening processes turn the fruit soft and red, its animal consumers gorge on the tempting fruit, and eventually excrete its undigested seeds. This ...