## 3 Results and Discussion
At the time of harvest, the fruits of the plants with saline stress had the highest content of flavonoids, while the fruits of the plants with Cu NPs and NaCl had the lowest content. Apparently, salinity stress increases this type of compound in fruits. However, this changes with the application of Cu NPs. At eight days of storage, the opposite was observed, for storage at room temperature and in refrigeration the fruits of the plants with application of Cu NPs and NaCl had the highest content of flavonoids. It was also observed that in both cases, the fruits of the T0 plants had the lowest content of these compounds. At 15 days of storage, a significant decrease in flavonoid content was observed in all treatments except for T0 under refrigeration. At room temperature, the T0 also had the highest flavonoid content. In addition, for both storage conditions, the fruits of the plants with NaCl had the lowest flavonoid content. This indicates that salinity stress negatively affects the flavonoid content when fruits are stored for 15 days. Finally, at 23 days of storage under refrigeration, all treatments except for T0 increased the flavonoid content compared to the previous evaluation. In this case, the fruits of the plants with NaCl followed by the fruits of the plants with application of Cu NPs presented the highest content of flavonoids. Flavononoids are a large and diverse group of low molecular weight polyphenic secondary metabolites in plants [3]. Flavononoids are the major phenolic compounds found in tomato [1; 31] and are also related to stress responses [3]. Therefore, it is expected that stress by NaCl or the application of Cu NPs will induce an effect on flavonoid activity [32]. The total flavonoid content decreases during fruit maturation [33]. Therefore, it is normal to observe a decrease as the storage time increases. In addition to this, the effect of refrigeration can reduce this effect. Therefore, under this condition, it is normal to observe a higher concentration of flavonoids. [PERSON] et al. [11] reported that the higher content of flavonoids in jalapeno chili fruits was observed under refrigeration conditions. The lack of a precise response in flavonoids over storage time is normal. Each specific flavonoid compound may have different roles as well as unique patterns of accumulation and degradation [31]. This results in different storage trends across storage time. Although flavonoids are a type of phenolic compounds, they are so variable that tomato plants can respond differently and generate different amounts of groups of metabolites when they are exposed to some stress [3]. This results in that there is not necessarily a correlation between flavonoids and total phenols. This is observed in the results of the present study (Tables 1 and 2) as well as in other studies in tomato [1; 31; 34] and jalapeno pepper [11]. The content of lycopene in tomato fruits presented statistical differences between treatments at all times of evaluation (Table 3). At the time of harvest, the highest lycopene content was present in the fruits of the T0 plants. While the lowest content was found in the fruits of plants with NaCl.