I understand when a human being would be pronounced dead. Heart stops beating and doesn’t start up again means a human is dead.
But what is the deal with fruit? Are they dead when they’re plucked from wherever they were growing from. Do they die when they spoil or is it sometime in between the plucking and the spoiling?
What’s the straight dope on this?
When it is in a chronic vegetative state.
Oh wow that was a bad joke… My WAG would be that it’s ‘dead’ as in, no longer growing, once it’s picked. The time it spends in your fridge or whatever waiting to be eaten is simply it being preserved. But then again, that’s just a wild ass guess.
Comparing tomatoes and humans is like comparing, well… I guess the apples and bananas analogy wouldn’t exactly be good here either. 
Never; it is either “toMAYto” or “toMAHto.”
Ok. I’m sorry. I was going to use the edit button to stop myself. But I couldn’t do it.
I’m not a biologist, but I’d guess when the majority of the individual cells are dead. Individual cells are dead when they cease functioning. When you cut a tomato off from the plant, it loses its source of nutrients and such things necessary for life, but it has a store of them in it too. As that store runs out, cells die, and the fruit dies.
As a guess.
The problem is that you are attempting to compare apples and wheelbarrows. Because of that the question has no answer.
The thing you need to appreciate is that a human is an organism, it is a single entity and a whole entity. As such it is relatively easy to define precisely when you die: the point when the entity known as Lakai ceases to exist. Now we can quibble over exactly when that point occurs (eg brain death cf. your concept of heart death cf. loss of higher brian function). But once we agree on when the entity ceases to exist then we have a point of death. It’s relatively clear cut.
In contrast a tomato isn’t an entity, it is an organ, and a diposable organ at that. It is an organ that has evolved to be shed from the parent plant. As such defining death becomes pointless. It’s akin to asking when a blood sample is considered to be dead. It’s a meaningless question because neither blood nor a tomato are enitities, and only entities can die.
If we wished to we could say that the tomato is dead when it exhibits no intrinsic metabolic activity. In practice that would occur when the very last ATP molecule has been destoryed. That point will occur several weeks ( or months with cold storage ) after the tomato has been picked. And it will occur some time after spoliage has occured. Normally half a fruit will begin to rot while the other half is quite viable.
Just to demonstrate how pointless defining detah for a tomato is you should reflect on the fact that plant cells are totipotent, that is each and every cell is capable of producing an entire plant. It is entirely possible to collect viable cells from a tomato some weeks after it was picked and using fairly simple tissue culture techniques produce a perfectly viable plant. Quite clearly the plant wasn’t dead. Now we might be able to do the same thing with a brain dead human, however the distinction once again is that the human is an entity and so the entity can be dead yet the body able to produce life. Because a tomato is simply an organ then either it is alive or it is not alive. If it can produce life then it must be alive itself sonce this is the only standard possible.
And just to keep in the spirit of nitpicking so beloved of the SDMB, a tomato contains seeds that can remain perfectly viable for several years after picking.
if the fruit is the offspring of the plant,
and the “life” of the tomato is extended by replanting,
then is a person really ever dead if they have children? hmm…
defining death of a human as the termination of a heartbeat can’t be related to the tomato since the fruit has no heart.
defining death as cellular breakdown of the individual excluding reproduction might be better, in that case…
the fruit is dead as soon as it is picked. It begins to decay immediately since it is no longer part of the plant which provides the essentials for life. It’s “heart” and digestive, circulatory, etc. systems.
So, I guess you could make the comparison.
This sounds like a commercial? I recall some damned tomato commercial where the tomatoes are bleeding and bitching about not being on the vine?
It isn’t.
The fruit is an organ of the plant, not an offspring. The seeds contained within the fruit are the offspring.
It isn’t.
Plantng the seed within the fruit will produce a genetically unique individual. It will in no way extend the life of the parent plant.
Of course.
Legally, ethically, logically a person is an entity and the thier children are distinct entities. Having children doesn’t alter the lifespan of the parent entity.
Did you even read my post? I’m guessing not.
The fruit in no sense begins to decay immediately. The fruit is a largely self-contained system and perfectly capable of providing its own essential processes including circulation and digestion.
No, you couldn’t.
no sense of humor, huh?
I was merely reiterating some of the points made in the jest of this thread. You said it right when you said comparing the two is “apples and wheelbarrows”, I agree. Just thought I’d put a spin on it.
It’s a tomato, not a person. Vegetative state jokes aside. 
heh
And once it’s picked, that’s it. You can plant it, extend the spoilage time, attempt to reattach it, better yet, just eat it.
as far as the offspring part… I’m not so sure. It’s a bit more complicated than simply saying it’s an organ.
Sure someone could make the comparison. The plant provides the nutrients which allow the fruit to grow. The fruit will not grow anymore after it is picked. Without some special attention it in a few days the tomato will begin to rot. Unless it was picked green to begin with, which will only allow you a little more time. Tomatoes don’t keep well, no matter what you do.
Just thought I’d brush up on my horticulture.
A tomato is a “perfect flower”.
Meaning it has both male and female sex organs. The male organ, the stamen, consists of the anther and filament. The female organ, the pistil, consists of the stigma and ovary. When the pollen is transferred to the stigma it fertilizes an egg in the ovary, a viable seed is produced.
The tomato seeds are the offspring of the sex organs of the parent plant. The fruit protects and provides nutrients for the seeds until germination.
So, the fruit itself is not alive. You might argue for the life of the seeds?
kinda like the egg is not a chicken…
So, how would picking a tomato compare to abortion?
When an Italian gets his hands on it.
OH, you were trying to be funny? In that case you’re right. You clearly have no sense of humour.
No, its not in any way. A fruit is an organ, the same as a leaf or a root.
The fruit also provides it own nutrients.
That is on no way correct.
Bollocks. Even in the tropics a tomato will last without refrigeration for a week or more even if picked when overripe. In more temperate climes several weeks is not unachievable with a tomato picked when first ripe. I have no idea where you got the idea that the fruit will begin to rot within days but it’s total nonsense.
Brushing up on your botany would be a better idea.
As I have already pointed out several times, this statement is ignorant rubbish.
If the fruit were not alive it would not be possible to culture the fruit and produce new plants. Omnia viva ex vivo.
Not wanting to argue (just have my ignorance fought) - this is contrary to what I understood to be the case - isn’t it true that completely differentiated plant cells can’t reproduce the whole plant?
Nope. Plant cells retain totipotency throughout their entire life cycle. Take any cell and subject it to the right hormone and it immediately digests its own cell wall and reverts to the plant equivalent of a stem cell. The only exceptions are those cell types that have shed their nucleus. Aside from that you can generate a new plant from a guard cell from a leaf, and epidermal cell from a root or a single grain of pollen. Differentiation in plant cells is totally reversible.
Alive=in the sense that humans are alive. Remember the OP.
As far as how long a tomato will last. I grew up on a farm and have grown truckloads of tomatoes over the years. They don’t keep well. Days not weeks. Unless picked green and/or refrigerated.
The seeds are what grow after picking NOT the fruit.
No sense of humor? Damn Blake why so demeaning. I didn’t want to argue either.
You win, UNCLE.
The OP was obviously not seriously comparing people and tomatoes. There is none.
Sorry I stopped by the dope. It used to be a friendly place.
There is no such sense at any stage of the development of a tomato.
Is this Wiki article slightly wrong, or am I just reading it wrong?
I give up. You clearly haven’t read anything I posted.
Utter bollocks.
Here is an actual scientific study on tomato storage. Even fruit picked with 30 - 60% colour required a week just to ripen fully at room temperature and were still perfectly marketable after 2 weeks of storage. Your claim that tomatoes only last days unless picked green or refrigereated is quite clearly nonsense.
The fruit also grows follwing harvest insofar as starches are converted to sugars and the fruit swells as a result.
I simply replied in kind. If you believe that my response is demeaning then so was your initiating comment.
I just don’t want you posting erroneous and ignorant material in GQ.
No, it has never been friendly to people posting ignarant and erroneous material in GQ. What you have posted is provably wrong and I have pointed that out.
I can’t see any obvious errors in the article, so I guess you’re reading to much into it. All the article is saying is that a meristem is a region of undifferentiated cells. It isn’t saying that the meristems are the only place you can find an undifferenitated cell, nor is it saying that cells that have differentiated can never undifferentiate into callus tissue with the right treatment. .
Fair enough. Thanks for that.