Solanum lycopersicum (Tomato)

After its introduction in Europe the tomato (Solanum lycopersicum) has gone a long way. Dedicated breeding has resulted in numerous cultivars grown all over the world, differing in all kind of aspects such as yield, shape, resistance, taste and quality. Modern cultivars are sold as hybrids with a very good performance. Since some decades the genetic variation of tomato and wild tomato relatives is conserved and successfully exploited to introgress genes resulting in tomatoes better able to cope with biotic and abiotic stress. Tomato has become a model species for genetic and genomic studies and the sequence of the gene-rich regions will be determined in the near future