Close relative of the cultivated tomato is resistant to many insects

[sl8]

From https://www.wur.nl/en/newsarticle/Close-relative-of-the-cultivated-tomato-is-resistant-to-many-insects.htm

Close relative of the cultivated tomato is resistant to many insects

Published on April 12, 2018

A wild tomato species from the Galapagos Islands has been discovered by scientists from Wageningen University & Research to be resistant to a wide range of pest insects. This species is closely related to the cultivated tomato, making the resilience easier to interbreed into the latter and ultimately making it resistant to many different types of insects.

Cultivated tomatoes are far more vulnerable to pests and diseases than some of their wild relatives. The process of breeding modern tomatoes has resulted in the loss of a lot of their natural resistance, while wild species have remained much better at coping with insects.

Scientists have been working to reverse this by reintroducing resistance from wild tomato species via breeding. The problem is that most of these plants are very distant relatives of the cultivated tomato and scientists have yet to successfully interbreed the required traits. The wild tomato from the Galapagos Islands, however, is genetically very similar to the cultivated tomato. Moreover, its resistance is coded within a single chromosome, which should make cross-breeding into existing plants much easier.

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More at link.

[Farmer-Rick]

1. Most vegetables Americans eat are delicate snowflakes

Tomatoes are at the top of that list. I can grow tomatillos, onions and kale and not need to do much of anything to them. But tomatoes you have to fertilize, weed meticulously, cage or tie up, look out for constant insect pressure, fertilize again, spray for molds and mildew, don't forget calcium and they end up getting late blight and early blght anyway.

Thanks to Bonnie Plants, Wal Mart, K Mart and other big box stores, the US is now covered with the late blight tomato virus, which is also the potato virus. Their hunger for profit ensured their infected tomatoes were sold throughout the US. The virus, which is also the potato virus, overwinters in potatoes, guaranteeing vectors of contamination for decades. When the big box stores were told their Bonnie tomatoe plants were infected, they reduced the price and sold them as a sale item. Now just about everyone gets the virus on their tomatoes.

You maybe diligent about reducing infection but your neighbor isn't. So the only real defense is to constantly replant determinate varieties. Thanks Bonnie...it's great how corporate greed destroys most everything it touches.

[Chipper Chat]

3. never had any luck with Bonnie plants.

Always died or produced little fruit.

[Farmer-Rick]

4. Me neither

But now late blight is a fact of life in the US. Even for us who never bought Bonnie.

[femmocrat]

5. Thanks for that explanation!

I fight that rotten blight every year now.... never had it before --- was it 2006? I knew it was from Bonnie plants, but I also got it on some heirlooms from QVC. I have even tried starting my own seeds, but the spores are everywhere now. It's a battle every year. I buy my plants at the local May Markets now and we spray, spray, spray.

I don't have too much trouble with insects, but I hope someone develops a blight-resistant tomato! Does anyone know of a good one that's out there now?

[NutmegYankee]

6. Phytophthora infestans, is a fungal like Oomycete, not a virus.

Also, it's native home is Mexico and it had already spread across the United States in the early 1800s, spreading to Europe to cause it's most infamous disasters in shipments of seed potatoes.

It's been here for a while.

[Nitram]

2. Tomatoes are relatives of plants that produce some powerful toxins to keep insects away.

Deadly nightshade and related plants. ... The family includes the Datura or Jimson weed, eggplant, mandrake, deadly nightshade or belladonna, capsicum (paprika, chile pepper), potato, tobacco, tomato, and petunia.