ALELLIC RICHNESS OF NATIVE TOMATO POPULATIONS (Solanum lycopersicum L.) FOR PLANT BREEDING

Tomato's (Solanum lycopersicum L.) narrow genetic background limits its genetic improvement. The tomato genetic base may be broaden with the use of its native and wild populations as they are a source of useful alleles, to increase yield, quality, and resistance to biotic and abiotic factors that cause stress. Native tomato collections from Mexico have a greater genetic diversity than that of elite germplasm; this implies that genotypes with agronomic, morphological and allelic characteristics different from such elite germplasm may be selected. Therefore, our objective was to evaluate the genetic diversity of 26 accessions of native Mexican tomatoes and identify the best ones for their use in tomato breeding. An agromorphological characterization with 20 traits in a completely randomized experimental design with three replications was performed along with a study with molecular SSR markers. The principal components analysis and hierarchical grouping allowed to identifying four groups with outstanding yield, size and internal fruit quality characteristics. The molecular markers were used to calculate the Shannon index, Nei index and Roger genetic distance, from which they generated seven groups, whose inbreeding and fixation coefficients were close to 1. This indicated the presence of inbreeding and wide differences within of the identified groups. With both characterizations and the Gower distance, the separation of S. lycopersicum L. and S. pimpinellifolium L. species was determined. The native Mexican tomato genotypes possess great genetic diversity and allelic variability that would allow their use in different breeding programs to incorporate alleles for yield and yield components, size and sugars content in the cultivated tomatoes.