TRADITOM reaches out to the Plant Breeding Community

International EUCARPIA Meeting of the Tomato Working Group held in Naples

As traditional tomato varieties and their improvement are of high interest for breeders, TRADITOM was present at the “XIX EUCARPIA Meeting of the tomato working group” that took place from 2-4  May, 2018 in Naples, Italy. Silvana Grandillo, Stefania Grillo and Maria Cammareri from the local TRADITOM partner CNR were co-organising this international event that has been gathering people from tomato breeding companies and academia for more than 40 years.

The TRADITOM partners took advantage of this opportunity to present this successful project to an audience of about 170 scientists and breeders representing 23 nationalities. In a plenary talk, TRADITOM coordinator Toni Granell gave an overview of the integration of omics technologies with the use of phenotypic and genotypic diversity to understand the basis of quality traits in traditional tomatoes and the importance to maintain and have access to tomato germplasm. The sensorial evaluation results were additionally shown by Fiorella Sinesio and Silvana Grandillo as part of the WP5 team.

Finally, the coordinator presented the general progress made in TRADITOM in a joint session with the coordinators of two other H2020 projects on tomato, Mondher Bouzayen for TomGEM and Andreas Schubert for TomRES, who also presented the objectives of their projects. The EUCARPIA meeting was therefore not only an excellent opportunity to communicate TRADITOM to tomato breeders and exchange ideas but also to discuss interactions between the three EU-funded projects currently working on tomato.

Programme of the Meeting