Thaindian News

Washington, April 7 (IANS) Researchers have boosted yields and improved taste of hybrid tomato, thanks to a single gene.
The discovery was patented by Yissum, the technology transfer arm of the Hebrew University, which is seeking potential partners for further development and commercialisation.

“This discovery has tremendous potential to transform both the billion-dollar tomato industry as well as agricultural practices designed to get the most yield from other flowering crops,” says study author Zach Lippman, who co-authored the study with Uri Krieger and Dani Zamir of the Hebrew University.

The team made the discovery while hunting for genes that boost hybrid vigour, a revolutionary breeding principle that spurred the production of outstanding hybrid crops like corn and rice a century ago.

Hybrid vigour, also known as heterosis, is the phenomenon by which intercrossing two varieties of plants produces more vigorous hybrid offspring with higher yields.

Plants carry two copies of each gene, and Shull’s studies suggested that harmful, vigour-killing mutations that accumulate naturally in every generation are exposed by inbreeding, but hidden by crossbreeding, says a Hebrew University release.

A theory for heterosis, supported by this new Hebrew University-Cold Spring discovery, postulates that improved vigour stems from only a single gene - an effect called “superdominance” or “overdominance”.

These findings were published in Nature Genetics.