A new Tomato brown rugose fruit virus (ToBRFV) resistant variety is set to become available early next year. Syngenta Vegetable Seeds recently announced that its first commercial variety resistant to ToBRFV will be released in areas where growers are facing significant disease pressure from the virus. The virus is tremendously infections, affecting both tomatoes and peppers and can be mechanically transmitted within and between crops by people and equipment.
Different levels of resistance to the virus exist in Syngenta’s current germplasm, but the research and development team was able to discover and target the specific genes related to resistance using molecular markers. Syngenta notes in a press release that before the ability to use molecular markers, it could take as many as 10 years to fully develop a resistant variety. Broad resistance will reportedly be built into Syngenta’s portfolio over the coming years.
Listen to the radio report below.
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