Research Project "TroTom"

Organic breeding of outdoor tomatoes for the fresh market and processing

TroTom was developed on the basis of a cooperation agreement between the University of Kassel and the Julius Kühn Institute, Federal Research Institute for Cultivated Plants. It is based at the JKI-Institute for Breeding Research on Horticultural Crops, but field trials are conducted at the Neu-Eichenberg experimental station in close cooperation with the project OekoTom.

This project aims to develop a methodology for breeding climate-adapted varieties with high resource efficiency in terms of water and nutrient requirements. The field tomato is to become a viable crop for (not only) organic production. Breeding research will establish the long-term methodological basis for designing breeding programs based on genetic and phenotypic diversity in order to breed varieties with high drought stress tolerance. The aim is to

• elucidate correlations and genetic linkages between different aspects of drought stress tolerance at different stages of development,
• identify opportunities for selection at early stages of development that allow preselection in containers and greenhouses,
• identify opportunities for selection in field trials that are effective even without extreme drought stress, which is difficult to achieve experimentally and in practical breeding, and
• identify excellent genotypes as starting material for practical breeding and test them in practical trials.

Genome-wide association studies (GWAS) will help to understand the genetic basis of the complex trait of drought stress tolerance so that it can be used in breeding in the long term, including marker-assisted selection and genomic selection.