Developments in tomato breeding: conventional and biotechnology tools

Plant breeding is defined as identifying and selecting desirable traits in plants and combining these into one individual plant. Since 1900, Mendel’s laws of genetics provided the scientific basis for plant breeding. This chapter presents ‘conventional’ breeding technologies that have been applied in tomato breeding. The term ‘conventional’ breeding is defined as the integrated application of classic genetics principles and genomics through visual and/or molecular selection with non-GM (genetic modification) tools. In tomato breeding four conventional methods have played important roles, namely, true breeding, tomato hybrid breeding, introgression breeding and mutagenesis. In the genomics era, the ‘conventional’ tomato breeding cycle was and is being challenged by novel tools of plant breeding resulting from the availability of genomic tools and resources. At the end of the chapter, an outlook on biotechnology tools that are revolutionizing tomato breeding is provide.