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Insights and Innovations from Wide Crosses: Examples from Canola and Tomato

^a Seminis Vegetable Seeds, Inc., 37437 State Highway 16, Woodland, CA 95695
^b Dep. of Agronomy, Univ. of Wisconsin, Madison, WI 53706; former address for T.C. Osborn, Dep. of Agronomy, Univ. of Wisconsin, Madison, WI 53706

^* Corresponding author (Tom.Osborn{at}seminis.com).

Wild relatives and unadapted forms of crop plants are important reservoirs of allelic variation that can be accessed through wide crosses for improvement of crop plants. In this paper, we describe insights and innovations from the use of wide crosses to transfer favorable alleles from wild or unadapted forms of two crops: canola (oilseed Brassica napus L.) and tomato (Lycopersicon esculentum Mill.). The canola research involves the use of unadapted forms (winter types and resynthesized B. napus) in wide crosses to spring-seeded types to increase seed yield of hybrids. The tomato research involves the use of wild tomato relatives to improve several traits, including disease resistance and fruit quality. These two crop plants provide a broad range of insights and innovations that have been gained from wide crosses in plant breeding research, including the impact of chromosomal rearrangements on allelic variation among unadapted forms of B. napus, and innovations that can be achieved from stacking elite alleles in tomato. The examples presented in this paper highlight the value of using DNA markers for understanding and applying the results of wide crosses.

Abbreviations: DH, doubled haploid • NIL, near-isogenic line • QTL, quantitative trait loci

Received for publication April 9, 2007.