Colorado State University Center for Science Communication Solanaceae is the plant family that includes peppers, eggplant, potato, and tomato. This video focuses on tomato—Solanum lycopersicum—and the work being done to protect it. In its cultivated form, tomato has lost much of the genetic diversity found in its ancestors. Plant breeder Dr. Jon Weiss has been breeding diversity back into the tomato. By collecting diverse samples of wild tomato relatives and conserving them in genebanks, scientists now have libraries of genetic material that can be bred into cultivated lines to improve quality, nutrition, and resistance to pests, pathogens, and a changing climate.
Solanaceae Diversity 2: Tomato
