Tomatoes grown with salty water taste better

Water your tomato plants with salty water if you want to enhance their flavour. That is the conclusion of researchers at Ghent University (UGent), who carried out an experiment using sensors.

When cultivators focus on taste, their tomatoes are smaller. If they focus on size, the tomatoes are less flavourful. The new findings by UGent’s bio-engineering department should help in growing tomatoes that are both large and tasty.

Tomato plants take up less saltwater than they do fresh water, said the researchers, and the resulting increase in natural sugars improves the taste.

To test how tomato plants react to certain conditions, the researchers used sensors to measure the diameter of the plant and the amount of water flowing through it. If a plant immediately became thicker after adding water, it actually lacked water in general. It was “thirsty”, in other words.

To monitor the intake of water, the researchers adjusted the salinity. “That’s a more verifiable method to monitor the amount of water intake than just giving them more or less water,” researcher Bart Van de Wal explained.

The salt content in the water was constant during the tests, but the researchers want to now experiment with variable salt contents to map the different effects.

Photo: Ingimage