The postharvest tomato fruit quality of long shelf-life Mediterranean landraces is substantially influenced by irrigation regimes

•The alc mutation does not predict shelf-life variation in Ramellet tomato.•Water excess during cultivation can inhibit the LSL phenotype in Ramellet.•Water stress may enhance postharvest fruit integrity in LSL tomato landraces.•Ramellet fruit attributes may be key in future shelf-life improvement.

Postharvest shelf-life is a critical trait for fleshy fruit and so studies of genotypes with long shelf-life (LSL) phenotypes are of great potential importance, since they can lead to strategies for crop improvement. Examples of such a genotype are the Delayed Fruit Deterioration (DFD) tomato, and most accessions of the “Tomàtiga de Ramellet” (TdR) Mediterranean landrace group, some of which have a particularly dramatic LSL phenotype and remain palatable for many months after reaching a fully ripe stage. The TdR accessions collectively show a wide variation in shelf-life, although, the basis of this variation is not known. Moreover, little has been reported regarding the relationship between cultivation conditions, fruit shelf-life and specific genetic loci. Here we show that the LSL trait in those landraces is both partially associated with a defined genetic component, in the form of the alcobaça (alc) mutation, and is profoundly affected by the irrigation regime during cultivation.