Abscission, the separation of organs from the parent plant, results in pre-harvest and postharvest losses of quality and longevity in many fresh produce. To overcome this problem, many crops are treated after harvest with various chemicals to delay or prevent abscission. However, these chemical treatments provide an interim solution to the abscission problem; the long-term solution is the development of cultivars, through conventional or molecular breeding, that are not prone to abscission. Our study used leaf and flower AZs of tomato (Solanum lycopersicum Mill, cvs. 'Shiran 1335' and...