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SUMMARY:Is there a limit to tomato yield? - Prof. Daniel Zamir\, Hebrew Un
 iversity of Jerusalem\, Israel
DTSTART:20110217T160000Z
DTEND:20110217T170000Z
UID:TALK29180@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Helen Scott
DESCRIPTION:Plant breeders are being challenged to push yield barriers of 
 crop plants in a sustainable way. For 25 years our lab has been using proc
 essing tomatoes (for ketchup production) as a model-mechanized crop in mar
 ker assisted breeding. Improved yield QTL were identified in a wide geneti
 c base of interspecific introgression lines\, a saturated mutant library\,
  a core collection of ~8000 tomato accessions and inbred parents derived f
 rom commercial hybrids. Recessive\, additive\, dominant and overdominant (
 heterotic) QTL and genes are being implemented in our breeding and gave ri
 se to the variety AB2\, which was a leader in California for five years du
 e to its high sugar yield per unit area. AB2 constitutes the first example
  of QTL coming from agriculturally unadapted species that boosts yield in 
 the marketplace. All processing tomatoes are F1 hybrids and thus we are na
 turally focused on genes that drive heterosis. Using mutant heterozygotes 
 we identified a number of heterotic genes that increase tomato yield per u
 nit area by up to 50%. All the lab data is uploaded in Phenom Networks (ht
 tp://phnserver.phenome-networks.com/)\, which is a web2 breeding platform 
 for analysis and display of knowledge of ontology defined phenotypes. The 
 opportunity to slice up the phenom in its different dimensions combined wi
 th a genome sequence is fertile ground for sustainability in biological di
 scoveries and ketchup flow.\n\nhttp://departments.agri.huji.ac.il/botany/s
 taff-eng/zamir.html 
LOCATION:Department of Plant Sciences\, Large Lecture Theatre
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