Tomato(Solanum lycopersicum)is a tractable and efficient model for fruit development,storage quality and nutrient accumulation,in addition to being a vegetable crop of increasing production,consumption and culinary importance the world over.Diverse,painstakingly collected,intricately designed,well characterized and freely available germplasm resources,combined with efficient transformation and a high quality genome sequence have accelerated the pace of tomato biology with practical implications to crop improvement.Out lab explores the function of ripening transcription factors underlying fruit ripening mutations.Additional regulators have been uncovered via examination of fruit quality QTLs and genes associated with ripening based on expression profiles.Other researchers have identified and carefully characterized additional transcriptional regulators that add greatly to our understanding of ripening control.Perhaps not surprisingly,many of these regulators have Arabidopsis counterparts shown to govern silique development.Genome enabled analysis of fruit development further indicates that transcriptional control intersects with changes in the epigenome.An overview of the diverse genetic regulators of fruit ripening in tomato will be presented,with examples of practical value and instances of leveraging tomato discoveries toward insights pertaining to the ripening and shelf-life of other fruit crops.