Blight Resistance in Tomatoes
Status: Ongoing
Contact person: Dr Katherine Steele
Funding sources: KESS/European Social Fund, Burpee Europe, The Savari Research Trust
Background: Late-blight is a fungal disease that costs the potato and tomato industry tens of millions of pounds per year through the cost of fungicide application and crop losses. This project seeks to ascertain whether more resistant types could be developed. Tomato genotypes with potential for use in blight-resistance breeding programmes are being screened in field and greenhouse trials to assess their blight resistance. Further laboratory-based detached-leaf assays will be conducted to allow further comparisons of different host/pathogen genotype combinations.
Aims:
- Evaluate a wide range of existing tomato genotypes for resistance to late blight, caused by Phytophthora infestans.
- Create an experimental mapping population of hybrid tomato plants that segregate for different blight resistance genes for understanding inheritance of resistance and selecting better varieties.
- Establish whether the tomato based P. infestans population is different from the potato based P. infestans population and investigate which factors lead to host specialisation.
Collaborators: Tim Beard
Outputs:
- QTL mapping in salad tomatoes Brekke, T. D., Stroud, J. A., Shaw, D. S., Crawford, S. & Steele, K. A., Jul 2019, In : Euphytica. 215, 7, 115.
- SSR assessment of Phytophthora infestans populations on tomato and potato in British gardens demonstrates high diversity but no evidence for host specialisation Stroud, J. A., Shaw, D. S., Hale, M. D. & Steele, K. A., 4 Jun 2015, In : Plant Pathology. 65, 2, p. 334-341
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