The aim of the EU-SOL project is to develop high quality tomato and potato varieties with improved traits important for consumers, processors and producers. The project particularly focuses on mapping, isolating and characterizing genes underlying important traits such as healthiness, nutritional value, taste, flavor, fragrance, shelf-life, starch composition, yield and plant architecture.New alleles of key-genes for these traits will be extracted from the rich biodiversity present in the Solanaceae. This natural biodiversity is an under-exploited sustainable resource that can enrich the genetic basis of cultivated plants. Assembly of these genes within new genotypes will boost our  knowledge of the factors that control quality. Also, it will provide a blueprint for novel high quality varieties to be developed by EU breeding companies using breeding strategies based on marker-assisted breeding and genetic engineering using exclusively natural plant genes.

This Integrated Project is supported by the European Commission through the 6th framework programme

Contract number: FOOD-CT-2006-016214