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Old October 11, 2006   #1
celticman
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Default Carolyn: Taste and 400 different organic compounds.

Carolyn,

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But pH is not associated with taste for that's due to the over 400 different organic compounds that have been detected by mass spectrometry, and none of them IDed, so far
.

I am curious on your reference for this fact; I beleive you! 8) I am more interested in why the compounds have not been IDed as their are very few isolated organic compounds that can not be IDed provided you have a mg or so. Is it a lack of funding, a lack of interest or what? Why has not been taken on I know relation between genetics and growing conditions that effects the compounds present is complex but I would think this would be of interest to big agriculture. Chemist cost money as do our toys. But isolating and IDing organic compounds is well one of the main thing a number of people do. Not all ways easy but it can be readily done with some effort.
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Old October 11, 2006   #2
carolyn137
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Celtic, my reference for the number 400 was from an article on tomato taste written by ( and I can't remember his name) in Organic Gardening sometime in the mid-90's as I recall.

And sure you can ID the molecules by mass spectrometry, but apparently they haven't been able to link particular molecules to specific genes.

And it's the genes that they need to know about if they're going to try and cross some heirlooms into the breeding lines for some hybrids, as Dr. Randy Gardner at NCSU tried to do. But there the problem was that he thought the resultant fruits were not firm enough to meet the expectations of commercial farmers.

Does that answer your question?
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Old October 11, 2006   #3
travis
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Keltic,

Here are links to a few references to organic compounds lending flavor to tomatoes:


http://helios.hampshire.edu/~nlNS/mo...20flavor%20%22

http://usna.usda.gov/hb66/023flavor....20flavor%20%22

http://roundtable06.ifas.ufl.edu/abstracts.htm

http://mistug.tetm.tubitak.gov.tr/~b...ar&rak=0007-14


http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/conten...t/311/5762/815

http://www.springerlink.com/content/px2k224u07605548/


In that second link from the top, the USDA one, on page 8 or 18 in the pdf, you'll find specifically regarding the tomato ...

"The major sugars are glucose and fructose in roughly equal amounts, while citrate and malate are the major organic acids, with citrate predominating. However, over 400 volitile compounds were identified, of which 16 or so have odor thresholds that would indicate that they contribute to flavor (Buttery, 1993; Buttery and Ling, 1993). Of these there is no clear odor impact component. Buttery (1993) suggested that a combination of cis-3-hexenal, hexanal, 1-peten-3-one, 3-methylbutanal, trans-2-hexenal, 6-methyl-5-hepten-2-one, methyl salicylate, 2-isobutylthiazole and B-ionone have the highest odor units and 2-isobutylthiazole is unique to tomato."

PV
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Old October 11, 2006   #4
celticman
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Thanks for the replies.
Intriguing very intruing.
Such simple compounds yet reading between the line the commercial tomato growers have bread the volitales out to improve the self life/ shipping characteristics. I guess their is not much hope for non cardboard toms in the dead of winter. With a little thought I can even see why it is hard to breed for taste. The genes control how the enzymes interact with the enviroment which in turn determine how tom taste and from what I been able to gather this is controlled by more than one gene. So much for hoping their was a straight forward way to reason out taste and thus breed a good the taste you want.
Time to stop thinking so hard and go ID the brown paste I made yesterday, so I can go home clean up the garden and plant some winter vegs to keep the weed down.
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Old October 11, 2006   #5
barkeater
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The problem would be solved if they could breed a consumer who doesn't associate a soft tomato with overripe or rotten, LOL.
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Old October 12, 2006   #6
greggf
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"The major sugars are glucose and fructose in roughly equal amounts, while citrate and malate are the major organic acids, with citrate predominating. However, over 400 volitile compounds were identified, of which 16 or so have odor thresholds that would indicate that they contribute to flavor (Buttery, 1993; Buttery and Ling, 1993). Of these there is no clear odor impact component. Buttery (1993) suggested that a combination of cis-3-hexenal, hexanal, 1-peten-3-one, 3-methylbutanal, trans-2-hexenal, 6-methyl-5-hepten-2-one, methyl salicylate, 2-isobutylthiazole and B-ionone have the highest odor units and 2-isobutylthiazole is unique to tomato."

Ooooo, scientists turn me on, hehhehheh.

I think barkeater is onto something! Forget the tomatoes, breed better consumers!!

=gregg=
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