*2.3. Fruit Quality*

Fruit firmness was measured in 2016 using a digital fruit firmness tester (penetrometer) with an 8 mm diameter plunger (TR Turoni srl, Forlì, Italy). The peak force or the maximum force to compress the fruits by 5 mm determined between two parallel plates using an Instron Universal Testing Machine (Model 3343, Norwood, MA, USA) was recorded as an indicator of the firmness of tomato fruits in 2017. A pH meter (Cyberscan pH 110, Eutech instruments, Singapore and Titrator T50, Mettler Toledo, Greifensee, Switzerland) was used to determine the pH. The total soluble sugars (TSS) of the juice was determined by a digital hand-held refractometer (Atago PR32-Palette, Tokyo, Japan) and expressed as ◦Brix. Vitamin C as the sum of both ascorbic and dehydroascorbic acid was determined in 2017 on fresh tomato as in Zapata and Dufour [21] with some modifications [22] as well as the total phenolic content and the antioxidant activity of tomato [23,24]. Quality measurements were performed on around 10 to 15 red marketable fruits from each treatment.
