`Solar Fire' Hybrid Tomato: Fla. 7776 Tomato Breeding Line

Abstract

`Solar Fire' is a heat-tolerant hybrid tomato ( Solanum lycopersicum L. formerly Lycopersicon esculentum Mill.) with resistance to all three races of Fusarium wilt incited by Fusarium oxysporum f. sp. lycopersici Sacc. Snyder & Hansen. It has superior fruit-setting ability in comparison with most existing cultivars under high temperatures (>32 °C day/>21 °C night), and the fruit crack less under the rainy field conditions often present in the early fall Florida production season. Fla. 7776 is the pollen parent in `Solar Fire', providing much of the heat tolerance in this hybrid. It has large fruit-providing breeders with a parent to produce heat-tolerant hybrids with two heat-tolerant parents.