Mathilde Causse currently works at the Research Unit of Génétique et Amélioration des Fruits et Légumes (GAFL), French National Institute for Agricultural Research in Avignon (France). Her research focuses in Genetics and Genomics for Plant Science and Horticulture.
Tomato is the first vegetable consumed in the world. It is grown in very different conditions and areas, mainly in field for processing tomatoes while fresh-market tomatoes are often produced in greenhouses. Tomato faces many environmental stresses, both biotic and abiotic. Today many new genomic resources are available allowing an acceleration of the genetic progress. In this chapter, we will first present the main challenges to breed climate-smart tomatoes. The breeding objectives relative to productivity, fruit quality, and adaptation to environmental stresses will be presented with a special focus on how climate change is impacting these objectives. In the second part, the genetic and genomic resources available will be presented. Then, traditional and molecular breeding techniques will be discussed. A special focus will then be presented on ecophysiological modeling, which could constitute an important strategy to define new ideotypes adapted to breeding objectives. Finally, we will illustrate how new biotechnological tools are implemented and could be used to breed climate-smart tomatoes.
