Abstract
Cultivar differences in fruit malformation in tomato were studied using 5 cultivars
with multilocular and oligolocular fruits. When the seedlings were exposed to low temperature, occurrence of fruit malformation was severe in multilocular cultivars (‘Ponderosa’ and ‘Ogatafukuju’) but it was slight in oligolocular cultivars (‘Kyokko’ and ‘Sweety’). When the seedlings were treated with TIBA (2, 3, 5-triiodobenzoic acid) and GA3 (gibberellic acid), ‘Ponderosa’ and ‘Ogatafukuju’ also showed severer fruit malformation than the other oligolocular cultivars. ‘
Ogatafukuju’, which showed a higher degree of fruit malformation than ‘Kyokko’, accumulated more total sugar and gibberellin in the shoot apex when the seedlings were exposed to low temperature.
