A Wild Idea To Improve Emerging Tomato Varieties

The Foundation for Food & Agriculture Research (FFAR) is providing a Seeding Solutions grant to fund a $2,063,835 collaborative project led by the Boyce Thompson Institute (BTI), in partnership with Meiogenix, to harness wild tomatoes’ genetic diversity to improve cultivated tomato varieties. The research is focusing on resistance to drought and early blight disease, two significant challenges facing tomato growers worldwide.

The project combines advanced genomic technologies with pioneering breeding approaches. The team is screening hundreds of wild tomato species to identify those with exceptional drought tolerance or early blight resistance. BTI is constructing a pangenome – a comprehensive genetic map that captures all genetic variations across tomato species. Once identified, Meiogenix will apply its targeted recombination technology, which directs genetic recombination to specific genomic locations, to transfer the genetic variants supporting drought tolerance and blight resistance from wild tomatoes to cultivated tomatoes.

“A single tomato genome doesn’t capture the full extent of genetic diversity,” says primary investigator Zhangjun Fei, Professor and genomics expert at BTI. “Our pangenome approach will help us identify structural variants – large DNA differences between wild and cultivated tomatoes – that are responsible for valuable traits.”

For more details, visit foundationfar.org.