ABSTRACT
Tomato (Solanum section lycopersicon), which includes wild and cultivated types, represents a diverse group of plants. This chapter focuses on the phenotypic and genetic diversity within the cultivated germplasm. As
Department of Horticulture and Crop Science, The Ohio State University/Ohio Agricultural Research and Development Center, Wooster, OH 44691, USA. *Corresponding author
discussed in Chapter 1, tomato species are indigenous to the Andes region in South America. The domestication of tomato traces to a Mexican origin of cultivation although a Peruvian origin has also been proposed (Jenkins 1948). Through Spanish contact, tomato was brought to Europe and other parts of the world starting in the early part of the 16th century. One of the fi rst written record of an early cultivated type appeared in Italy in 1544 as a short paragraph in a manuscript describing a poisonous distant relative of tomato, the mandrake. This record details human consumption of the fruit with oil and salt, thus tomato was already being established in the Italian cuisine at that time (Matthiolus 1544). Additionally, the fruit was described as fl attened, segmented, and of yellow color, hence its Italian name pomo d’oro (golden apple; Matthiolus 1544). Other fruit types were documented following Matthiolus’s original publication, most notably describing variation in color as well as size and shape. More in-depth discussion about the early period of tomato improvement can be found in the tomato monograph by Peralta et al. (2008). Although details about tomato domestication and initial improvements are unclear, it is certain that the last 500 years resulted in a signifi cant increase in morphological diversity among domesticated tomato accessions throughout the world.
