Volume 60 - Tomato Genetics Cooperative - University of Florida

Opena et al., 1989; Celine et al., 2003; Scott, 1997; Scott et al., 2003). It is also very
difficult to combine bacterial wilt resistance to resistance to root knot nematode
(Messiaen et al., 1978; Prior et al., 1994; Deberdt et al., 1999 a & b).
Kelman (1953) and Acosta (1963) reported the first surveys of the early screening
trials carried out during the first half of the 20 th century, in the USA and other countries,
with hundreds of tomato varieties. The very limited success obtained at that time
outlined the difficulty to identify highly resistant material. The breeding for resistance
took on new momentum after World War II. Sources of high levels of resistance were
identified and used for breeding. The material most widely used nowadays as; controls,
key source(s) of resistance for ongoing breeding programs and/or for genetic studies
was created in the span of time running from the 1950s and 1970s. Our main objective
was to draw a worldwide historical outline of the major breeding inputs of this period, in
order to get a global picture of the key original resistance sources used, of the major
breeding lines obtained, and of their relationships. Indeed, as information on these
topics is scarce, scattered and confusing, it is useful to sum it up for the sake of present
and future research on tomato resistance to bacterial wilt. The major programs were
carried out (1) in Puerto Rico, (2) in US Universities (North Carolina, Hawaii, Florida),
(3) in the Horticulture Research Station 1 , Japan, (4) in the University of Philippines
College of Agriculture, (5) in the French public institutes INRA 2 in Guadeloupe and
IRAT 3 in Guadeloupe and Martinique (French West Indies), and later on (6) in AVRDC 4 ,
Taiwan.
1. Primary historical breeding programs, their sources of resistance and
germplasm flow between programs
The main accessions used and created in the major research and breeding
programs of the USA, Japan, Philippines, French West Indies and Taiwan, as well as
their relationships, are outlined in Fig. 1. For the sake of clarity the accessions listed are
limited to the major ones, i.e. those which are most frequently mentioned in the
literature for their high level of resistance in worldwide trials, or for which the sources of
resistance have been published. We also took care to mention enough accession
names for the reader to obtain the encoding system used by the different programs. The
arrows linking two accession names indicate their parental link. The arrows starting from
the frame of a given program indicate the use of material of this program in another
program or for creating a given breeding line. The number(s) in brackets indicate the
literature reference where the information about the relationships between accessions
and programs is provided. For the convenience of the reader, we summed up in Table 1
1 The name and locations of this institute changed along the time: 1921-1950: Horticulture Research
Station (Okitsu, Shizuoka); 1950-1961: Department of Horticulture, National Institute of Agricultural
Sciences (Hiratsuka, Kanagawa); 1961-1973: Horticulture Research Station (Hiratsuka, Kanagawa);
1973-1986: Vegetable and Ornamental Crops Research Station (Tsu, Mie); 1986-2001: National
Research Institute of Vegetables, Ornamental plants and Tea (NIVOT) (Tsu, Mie); 2001-present: National
Institute of Vegetable and Tea Science (NIVTS) (Tsu, Mie). Dr H. Fukuoka, NIVTS, pers. com.
2 Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique.
3 Institut de Recherche en Agronomie Tropicale (now part of CIRAD, Centre de Coopération
Internationale en Recherche Agronomique pour le Développement).
4 The Asian Vegetables Research and Development Centre (now AVRDC-The World Vegetable Center).
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