Animals & nature · 1978
Does breeding tomatoes to tolerate root rot necessarily produce a bigger harvest?
Not necessarily: the brown-root-rot-tolerant tomato line J513 had less disease and a smaller yield decline as soil inoculum increased than the susceptible cultivar Ailsa Craig. But J513 yielded less on freshly sterilised soils, and its overall yields were no greater on the soils tested.
Details
A comparative glasshouse growing experiment examined root rot symptoms and yields in J513, an advanced tomato breeding line tolerant to brown root rot (BRR), and Ailsa Craig, a susceptible cultivar. Both were grown in glasshouse soils containing different amounts of inoculum of the fungus Pyrenochaeta lycopersici Schneider & Gerlach.
In both 1972 and 1973, J513 had less BRR than Ailsa Craig. As the amount of inoculum in the soil increased, the decline in yield was also smaller in J513 than in Ailsa Craig.
However, J513 yielded less than Ailsa Craig on freshly sterilised soils. Overall, J513's yields were therefore no greater than Ailsa Craig's on the soils used.
The researchers concluded that BRR tolerance was demonstrably effective, but that further improvements in the agronomic potential of tolerant lines were needed to take advantage of this tolerance where BRR was not severe.
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