TomaTech has announced a development in the fight against the Tomato Brown Rugose Fruit Virus (ToBRFV), which has caused significant economic damage in the last few years. Lead by Assaf Eybishitz PhD, the company has filed for a provisional patent for identifying the DNA markers correlated to the virus’ resistant traits, which is aimed to accelerate the breeding and commercialisation of high resistance non-GMO tomato varieties.
“Following years of intensive R&D efforts, TomaTech has succeeded in identifying DNA markers that elicit resistance to BRFV,” says Ofer Ben Zvi, CEO of TomaTech. “This discovery will allow us to rapidly develop a complete portfolio of resistant tomatoe varieties for global introduction and will benefit the growers and the entire value chain, providing a consistent supply chain while lowering production costs.”
The virus has been inflicting havoc on in-door tomato plantations globally since 2014, TomaTech says, affecting a broad spectrum of tomatoes. Outbreaks have reportedly happened across the North America, Europe, and the Middle East and is spreading to other regions.
The appearance of ToBRFV on commercial tomato cultivations reportedly presented a substantial threat to tomato growers and to the global value chain, causing severe damage to commercial varieties.
Development of a portfolio of resistant varieties requires exceptional phenotyping and genotyping capabilities. TomaTech targeted virus resistance as one of its top R&D goals and has been working intensively since 2017 to develop sources of resistance and the cultivars.
“The ability to find strong resistance as well as identify DNA markers, protecting our IP through submission of provisional patent application, demonstrates TomaTech’s capabilities to position itself at the front line in the research and breeding of the tomatoes varieties for the global market,” said Favi Vidavski, PhD, President and head of R&D of TomaTech.
The company has introduced intermediate resistance (IR) capabilities across its breeding program while broadening efforts to attain high resistance (HR), projected to be completed in the near future.
“We have successfully identified and produced an impressive portfolio of commercial ToBRFV-resistant (IR) tomatoes that already are available for our customers,” said Vidavski.
