On the Tracks of Traditional Tomato Varieties in Tenerife

TRADITOM 2nd Progress Meeting, April 6-8, 2017

For the second TRADITOM Progress Meeting, the consortium came together in Puerto de la Cruz, on the Canary Island Tenerife. Traditionally, tomato is one of the main products grown on the island (with ORONE® being the only commercial variety registered in the Canary Islands), while now also banana plantations play an important role in the island’s agricultural production.

The meeting was hosted by Domingo Ríos and his team from Centro de Conservation de la Biodiversidad Agricola de Tenerife (CCBAT) and Cultivos y Tecnología Agraria de Tenerife (CULTESA) . It was structured to enable exchange and discussion on the progress of the TRADITOM project and to allow lecturing on traditional agricultural practices and tomato varieties of Tenerife during technical field trips.

“The meeting has completely fulfilled my expectations. I would highlight the good relationship between all the researchers involved, and the excellent attitude to make an effort for the sake of achieving the objectives, even when an increased work load has been proposed.” (José Luis Rambla, CSIC-IBMCP)

The first day of the meeting was opened by TRADITOM Coordinator Antonio Granell who briefly summarized the main findings within the project so far; then Jesús Morales Martínez, Minister for Agriculture in Tenerife, came in for a short statement on the importance of  tomato cultivation for the Canary Islands that faces new challenges which he believes can only be dealt with research and innovation projects like TRADITOM. He emphasized the support of the Canary Government to research in crops of interest like tomato, banana and other tropical and subtropical fruits. The welcoming speeches were followed by a presentation on traditional tomato varieties from the Canary Island, preservation of traditional varieties and the management of natural resources, held by Domingo and his team. 

Dr Roger Chetelat from the Department of Plant Sciences at UC Davis, USA joined the meeting as scientific advisor, giving a lecture on “Tomato Genetic Resources: Mating Systems and Genome Introgression”.

“I particularly liked the participation of a member of the Scientific Advisory Board. The point of view of an external observer serves to know our strong points (the collaboration of many different countries in a friendly manner) as well as the constraints we will face in the future (for example the distribution of seeds).” (María José Díez, UPV)

Following this, the TRADITOM partners continued with work package presentations, updating the other consortium members of the progress made. The day ended with a visit to CULTESA, a center for crops and agricultural technology. The consortium was able to visit the facilities for micropropagation of plant material, the incubation chamber storing seedlings of tomato as well as e.g. banana and aloe vera plants and lastly, the greenhouse.

The second meeting day continued with work package presentations by the TRADITOM partners, discussing issues of biochemical compositions, shelf life as well as consumer preferences, environmental effects and resilience of the tomato plants. After halftime of the project’s duration, the consortium additionally came together for an exploitation workshop, revisiting expected outcomes of the project and potential key exploitable results. In order to ensure maximum use of project findings, the consortium partners will continue the dialogue on how to best use results to inform farmers and producers as well as the scientific community and general public about the outcomes of the project work.

A visit to the botanical garden and the germplasm bank of Tenerife (CCBAT) rounded off the meeting, triggering fruitful discussions on traditional versus modern tomato varieties, economic impact of agricultural practices and consumer preferences. The CCBAT was founded in 2003 with the aim to recover and conserve the local agricultural biodiversity of Tenerife.

“I was impressed by the effort the Canary Islands people to invest in preservation of their impressively diverse germplasm.” (Yury Tikunov, WUR-PRI)

The TRADITOM partners reflected on the meeting being an important occasion to align the work done in different locations/centers at the same time whilst being able to liaise with colleagues on techniques used, assumptions made and research carried out in the field.