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Composition of tomatoes and tomato products in antioxidants (WG1) page 33
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Table 15. Time course of carotene levels (mg/kg fresh matter) in tomatoes at various
harvest dates (after Koskitalo and Ormrod, 1972)
Harvest time Phytoene Phytofluene β-Carotene Lycopene
7 days 18.1 5.9 3.0 43.5
14 days 23.0 7.9 2.2 57.8
21 days 19.2 8.2 2.2 64.8
(1) f. m. : fresh matter
In tomato fruit cv. Moneymaker cultivated in greenhouse, Rabinowitch et al.(1975)
observed a rapid fall in chlorophyll content with the onset of the mature-green stage and
chlorophyll disappeared completely at the beginning of the pink stage. During the same
period of time, the tissue content of β-carotene was doubled. Lycopene and its colourless
precursors phytoene and phytofluene began to accumulate following the breaker stage. At the
ripe-red stage, lycopene constituted 95% of the coloured carotenoids, or 73% of the total
carotenoids including phytoene and phytofluene.
Cabibel and Ferry (1980) considered 5 stages : 1 (mature green), 2 (white), 3 (yellow),
4 (pink), 5 (red). The β-carotene content increased regularly in open field while lycopene
increased sharply between the stage pink and the stage red. Lycopene content could be a good
index of maturation degree (Table 16).