Monitoring and managing post-harvest decay of greenhouse tomatoes

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Greenhouse vegetable production in Canada is an industry that generates over a billion dollars in sales per year. Tomato (Solanum lycopersicum L.) is the leading vegetable crop grown in greenhouses in Canada and the United States. British Columbia produced 62 million kg of tomatoes in 116 ha of greenhouse growing space in 2010, valued at $141 million. Post-harvest deterioration of fruit can lead to losses ranging from between 5 % to 20 %, and remains a continual challenge for producers. Over the past year, increased losses due to post-harvest decay have been reported by the industry collaborator. These losses appear during the summer months as visibly decayed fruit; the reasons for this apparent increase are not known. The objectives of the proposed work are to investigate the role of pathogenic microbes in causing post-harvest decay, and to understand the factors that can predispose fruit to infection. Working with an industry collaborator, additional research objectives will include: establishing the effect of post-harvest storage temperatures on development of decay; determining the source of microbial contamination, by monitoring the presence of microbes on fruit, pruned leaf debris left on the ground, and air; to monitor the possible changes in microbial communities on the fruit surface and in the greenhouse environment over time; and finally, to determine if competing microbes, in particular Bacillus subtilis, on the fruit surface could inhibit fruit decay. The results from this project should identify the key factors leading to post-harvest decay of tomato fruits in British Columbia. The results should be applicable to the post-harvest handling process currently in place and should identify future strategies for implementation to reduce problems/issues indentified from the work. Solving the tomato post-harvest decay problem will benefit the industry partner, as well as consumers of a valuable Canadian-grown commodity. The university will be provided with an opportunity to explore a scientifically interesting problem from an applied perspective which should yield basic novel findings that could eventually be published. Training will be provided in microbiology to two undergraduate students.