420 Scientia Agricola http://dx.doi.org/10.1590/0103-9016-2014-0322 Traditional Eastern Spanish varieties of tomato Carles Cortés-Olmos1, José Vicente Valcárcel1, Josep Roselló2, Maria José Díez1, Jaime Cebolla-Cornejo1* 1Universitat Politècnica de València/Instituto Universitario ABSTRACT: Despite the importance of traditional varieties of tomato (Solanum lycopersicum L.) de Conservación y Mejora de la Agrodiversidad Valenciana as sources of variation in breeding programs and varieties targeted to high-price quality mar- (Polytechnic University of Valencia, Institute for the kets that value their exceptional organoleptic quality, little is known regarding the structure of Conservation and Improvement of Valentian Agrodiversity), these materials at the morphological level. In this study, a collection of 166 populations (137 of Camino de Vera, s/n. – 46022 − València. Spain. them during two years) of traditional varieties of tomato from the east coast of Spain has been 2Instituto Valenciano de Investigaciones Agrarias/Estación characterized using 41 descriptors. The characterization revealed a considerable variation. The Experimental Agraria de Carcaixent (Valencian Institute for segregation observed in several populations (28 %) suggests that apart from the configuration Agricultural Research/Agricultural Experimentation Station as population varieties, the high variation present in these landraces may be partially due to pos- of Carcaixent), C/ Partida Barranquet, s/n. – 46740 – sible seed mixing and spontaneous cross-pollination. Only nine fruit descriptors were required to Carcaixent, Spain. represent the variation present in the collection analyzed. It seems that after spontaneous cross- *Corresponding author <
[email protected]> pollinations, farmers applied strong selection to a small number of traits, though even in these traits a high level of variation is maintained.