The First Tomato Hybrids “made in West Africa”
Tomato is an indispensable ingredient of popular dishes in West Africa.
Although tomato production in Ghana has intensified in recent years, well adapted locally bred disease resistant and heat tolerant tomato varieties are required to satisfy the demand for fresh market and processing tomato.
Evaluation of WorldVeg materials along with local cultivars and imported commercial hybrids led to the identification of WorldVeg hybrids with high levels of resistance to foliar diseases, high yield and good fruit quality.
Agri-Commercial Services, a local seed company, became interested in producing tomato hybrid seed and plans to commercialize it in Ghana and neighboring countries. In collaboration with the West African Centre for Crop Improvement (WACCI) three multi-disease resistant and high yielding hybrids were released in Ghana with local names of ‘Ante Dede’, ‘Legon Tomato’, and ‘Tomato Queen’, respectively. WorldVeg has provided the parental lines for producing the hybrid seed for multiplication to WACCI, and with WorldVeg support, Agri-Commercial Services is initiating certified seed production and training of producers in the second quarter of 2022 for the first commercial tomato hybrids produced in Ghana.
New diversity for breeding
Heat stress adversely affects the flowering and reproductive processes of tomato, resulting in low fruit-set and low yields.
Even relatively heat-tolerant cultivars do not set fruit at average temperatures above 30°C and increasing tolerance levels above those of the known sources is required. WorldVeg tomato breeding developed a multi-parent advanced generation inter-cross (MAGIC) population derived from eight parents, including four heat tolerance sources (Siberia, CLN1621L, Saladette, Nagcarlang), and four elite WorldVeg lines.
The purpose of the MAGIC population is to boost heat tolerance by merging tolerance traits from different sources and combining increased tolerance with favorable agronomic traits.
The MAGIC lines showed segregation for heat tolerance and horticultural traits and will serve for breeding and research to better understand the genetics underlying heat tolerance. Some lines show high pollen viability and good fruit set at elevated temperatures.
Happy retirement to WorldVeg Global Plant breeder and Lead Scientist Dr. Peter Hanson
Special thanks to our colleague Peter Hanson, who has devoted his career to developing climate resilient, pest- and disease-resistant tomatoes for farmers and consumers in Asia and Africa. After more than 29 years working in Taiwan and Benin for WorldVeg, the best of the breeders! will go on a well-deserved retirement.
