LAUSR

BACKGROUND "Vegetative" and "generative" tomato rootstock types have been proposed based on their different effects on tomato scion growth performance; however, their impacts on fruit quality have not been characterized. In addition, no study has been conducted in which the effects of rootstock on grape tomato quality attributes were assessed using sensory evaluation and instrumental methods. Here, we conducted two experiments to examine the influence of 'DR0141TX', 'Estamino', and 'Multifort' rootstocks (vegetative, generative, and uncharacterized, respectively) on fruit quality properties of determinate and indeterminate grape tomato scions under organic production in high tunnels, including color, size, firmness, dry matter content, soluble solids content (SSC), titratable acidity (TA), pH, and consumer sensory attributes. RESULTS In both experiments, grafting 'Sweet Hearts' indeterminate grape tomato onto 'DR0141TX', 'Estamino', or 'Multifort' increased fruit size and led to negligible effects on sensory attributes and instrumental measurements of fruit quality attributes. For 'BHN 1022' determinate grape tomato, rootstocks did not exhibit any major impact on fruit quality attributes in Experiment 1. However, fruit quality was compromised by grafting per se and rootstocks, especially 'Multifort', in Experiment 2, as reflected by reduced SSC, TA, and SSC/TA and lower scores of overall appearance, overall acceptability, tomato flavor, overall texture, and sweetness. CONCLUSION In general, "vegetative" and "generative" rootstocks showed comparable effects on sensory evaluations and instrumental measurements of grape tomato quality attributes for both indeterminate and determinate scions. More research is needed to better characterize rootstock effects on fruit quality including the flavor-related compounds under different growing conditions. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.