Cultivar, Maturity, and Heat Treatment on Lycopene Content in Tomatoes

Using high performance liquid chromatography, tomato cultivars which contain the Crimson gene (og) were usually found to have higher lycopene content (5086 to 5786 μg/100 g fresh weight) than those cultivars lacking the gene (2622 to 4318 μg/100 g fresh weight). A comparison of the color readings taken from tomatoes at the equatorial region with those of the homogenate prepared from the same region showed that the hue of tomato homogenate was a better indicator of lycopene content than tomato surface hue. The tomatoes' lycopene content was not affected by ethylene treatment or cooking for 4, 8, and 16 min at 100 °C.