Participatory Tomato Breeding for Organic Conditions in Italy

Participatory plant breeding (PPB) has been proposed as a breeding methodology to increase/optimize the development and adoption of several new varieties each one different and each adapted to individual microclimates. Tomato is an important horticultural crop in Europe, and in particular in Italy, and there is an increasing demand for organic tomatoes. Therefore, a PPB program was considered as the ideal approach to rapidly develop and deliver in each organic microclimate, a number of different tomato lines directly selected under organic conditions.