Detection of Quantitative Trait Loci (QTL) Associated with the Fruit Morphology of Tomato

Tomato (Solanum lycopersicum L.) is the second most-consumed vegetable in the world. The market value and culinary purpose of tomato are often determined by fruit size and shape, which makes the genetic improvement of these traits a priority for tomato breeders. The main objective of the study was to detect quantitative trait loci (QTL) associated with the tomato fruit shape and size. The use of elite breeding materials in the genetic mapping studies will facilitate the detection of genetic loci of direct relevance to breeders. We performed QTL analysis in an intra-specific population of tomato developed from a cross between two elite breeding lines NC 30P × NC-22L-1(2008) consisting of 110 recombinant inbred lines (RIL). The precision software Tomato Analyzer (TA) was used to measure fruit morphology attributes associated with fruit shape and size traits. The RIL population was genotyped with the SolCAP 7720 SNP array. We identified novel QTL controlling elongated fruit shape on chromosome 10, explaining up to 24% of the phenotypic variance. This information will be useful in improving tomato fruit morphology traits.