Funding boost for tomato variety research

Monday, December 22, 2014

by SUSAN MANN

The Ontario Tomato Research Institute has received a $214,682 grant to help fund research that will increase processing tomato yields and develop new varieties.

Institute chair Phil Richards says the money will help fund the work of Steven Loewen, a processing tomato breeder at the University of Guelph’s Ridgetown College. The Institute is funded jointly by tomato processors and growers.

Richards says Loewen is working on developing “tomatoes that suit the Ontario industry. He looks for high yields and the quality of tomatoes processors want, such as higher solids or the attributes for whole pack tomatoes.” Loewen is also doing work to find varieties that are less susceptible to bacterial diseases.

There aren’t good chemical protections to shield the plants from bacterial diseases and that’s why growers need disease resistant varieties, he says.

Bacterial diseases can cut into yields. For example, some growers who were hit with the bacterial disease this year had average yields of 34.3 tons per acre while those that didn’t had average yields of 50 tons per acre. If a storm hits and there’s a bit of bacterial disease in the field “it (the storm) just seems to spread it through the field,” he says, adding maybe if growers had plants with a bit more resistance they could reduce the disease’s effect on yields.

MP Dave Van Kesteren (Chatham-Kent-Essex) announced the funding Dec. 19 on behalf of federal Agriculture Minister Gerry Ritz. The money is from Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada’s AgriInnovation program. BF