Tomato families possessing resistance to late blight also display high-quality fruit

In recent years, several efforts have been made to develop tomato cultivars displaying both late blight resistance and good organoleptic fruit quality. Selection indexes are considered the best option to perform genotype selection when many different traits are being considered to select genotypes as close to the desired ideotype as possible. Therefore, this study aimed at selecting late blight-resistant tomato families based on their fruit quality attributes using factor analysis and ideotype-design / best linear unbiased predictor (FAI-BLUP) index. For this purpose, we assessed the fruit quality parameters of 81 F3:5 tomato families previously selected as late blight resistant. The tomato cultivars Thaise, Argos, and Liberty were included in the trial as checks. The experimental arrangement consisted of complete randomized blocks with three replicates. Each plot was formed by five plants, three of which were used in the fruit quality assessment. The quality parameters assessed were fruit diameter, fruit length, fruit color (L, a*, C, and H), fruit firmness, titratable acidity, soluble solids content, hydrogen potential, and SS:TA ratio. Fruit quality data were analyzed using the mixed model methodology via REML/BLUP (restricted residual maximum likelihood / best linear unbiased prediction) to obtain BLUPs that were further subjected to the FAI-BLUP selection index. The FAI-BLUP was efficient in selecting late blight-resistant tomato genotypes based on their fruit quality attributes. Fourteen tomato families were classified as closest to the desirable ideotype for fruit quality. These genotypes should move on to the following stages of the tomato breeding program.