*4.1. Plant Material and Experimental Design*

Tomato fruit (*Solanum lycopersicum* L. cv. Dafni F1) was collected from a local field Limassol, Cyprus (crop cultivated for six months under commercial conditions and standard cultural practices in a clay loam soil [65], frequently irrigated by drippers according to crop needs, during spring with temperatures ranging from 18 ◦C to 28 ◦C). Fruits were collected by the third inflorescences of the plants. At the laboratory, fruits were selected to obtain homogeneous batches based on color, size, ripeness [breaker stage-mature green (two and three ripening stage)—and light red and red (five and six ripening stage)] and free from defect or injury and then were utilized for experimental purposes. To avoid microbial

contamination, the fruits were submerged in a diluted chlorine solution for 3 min before being washed four times with distilled water.

Organic essential oils were extracted by hydrodistillation from sage [*Salvia trilova* L. (Lamiaceae)] gathered in a hilly area of Crete, Greece (without any human inputs) (Clevenger apparatus for 3 h). The composition of the EO was analysed by Gas Chromatography-Mass Spectroscopy (GC-MS), and the main (>2.0%) components were: *α*-Pinene (3.1%), Camphene (2.3%), *β*-Pinene (4.1%), Eucalyptol (53.5%), *cis*-Thujone (6.7%), *trans*-Thujone (3.3%) and Camphor (7.9%), as described previously [36].

Breaker and fully ripe tomato fruits were placed in 1 L polystyrene containers with snap-on lids for each treatment. Two tomatoes were placed in each container, resulting in eight containers (biological replications) per treatment for each of the storage periods. Sage EO used in this study (concentrations based on previous research [22]) were 50 μL L−<sup>1</sup> and 500 μL L−1. Aliquot of each EO solution was placed into individual Eppendorf (1.5 mL) tubes, which were subsequently placed inside the plastic containers shortly before the lids were covered. Filter paper dampened with water was inserted in each container to maintain high relative humidity level during storage, as described in Tzortzakis [22]. The EO volatile components were allowed to spontaneously evaporate inside the containers at 20 ◦C for 2 h. The containers were then moved to a cold room for storage. Tomato fruit exposed to control (ambient air) or EO (sustainable effect—SE) for 2, 7, and 14 days at 11 ◦C and 90% relatively humidity (RH~90%) in darkness. Following 1-week exposure, a second batch of fruits were transferred to ambient air and stored at 11 ◦C for an additional one week (memory effect-ME) named as "7 + 7 d" treatment. To summarize, the experimental set up consisted of 3 treatments × 2 ripening stages × 8 replications (2 fruits per replication) × 4 storage periods (plus day 0) with total of 400 fruits used (Figure 1). Sixteen samples of treated and control fruits were taken after 2, 7, and 14 days and 7 + 7 days for immediate analysis for each ripening stage. For day zero measurements, washed fruits (eight containers) with chlorine were used. Containers were aerated every 72 h avoiding air concentration abnormalities. Volatiles exposure did not cause any phytotoxic effect on the tomato fruit.
