ARS | Publication request: Heritability Patterns of Elastic and Viscoelastic Components of Tomato Firmness Derived from Intra and Interspecific Genetic Backgrounds

Submitted to: Meeting Abstract
Publication Type: Abstract
Publication Acceptance Date: February 15, 2004
Publication Date: May 15, 2004
Citation: Abbott, J.A., Stommel, J.R., Camp, M.J. Heritability patterns of elastic and viscoelastic components of tomato firmness derived from intra- and interspecific genetic backgrounds. Meeting Abstract. HortScience. 2004. V. 39. P. 812.

Technical Abstract: Tomato fruit firmness is a key quality component of tomatoes produced for processing applications. Fruit firmness is generally considered a quantitatively inherited trait. Pericarp firmness of modern tomato cultivars is believed to be derived from a fairly narrow genetic background and is the result of the cumulative effort of numerous breeders over many years. Despite inferior phenotypes, wild species contain loci that can substantially increase tomato fruit quality. In the current study, inheritance of fruit firmness in firm and ultra-firm processing tomato germplasm developed from transgressive segregants of interspecific Lycopersicon esculentum x L. hirsutum and intraspecific L. esculentum crosses was characterized. Large-fruited breeding lines that varied in fruit firmness from soft to firm were identified for genetic analyses. A six-parent diallel of these advanced breeding lines was developed for field trials over multiple locations. Fruit firmness in the resulting 36 lines was determined by measuring fruit elastic properties during fruit puncture and compression. Following loading for compression, stress relaxation was recorded for 15 s. A three-parameter model was used to fit the relaxation curves. There was little correlation between firmness (maximum force) and the three relaxation parameters, i.e., firmness measured the elastic component and the relaxation parameters measured the viscous portions of the texture. General and specific combining ability for firmness derived from the respective genetic backgrounds was determined. Genetic variance components for fruit firmness were estimated using a diallel analysis and narrow sense heritability was measured using parent-offspring regression.