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Posted 7 July 2004. PMN Crop News. Tomatoes Get Genetic "Boost" Under Sustainable Ag System Agricultural Research Service, United States Department of Agriculture. Washington, D.C. (July 6, 2004) - Tomatoes grown in a sustainable agricultural system using a legume cover crop as fertilizer had better disease resistance and lived longer than tomatoes grown on black polyethylene mulch with chemical fertilizer, Agricultural Research Service scientists report. Based on a five-year sustainable agriculture study, the results
are The scientists showed that at least 10 genes in the leaves of
tomatoes The researchers compared the two tomato cultivation systems at
the ARS Henry A. Wallace Beltsville (Md.) Agricultural Research Center. In one
system, tomatoes were grown under the traditional method of black In the other planting system, the scientists grew tomatoes in
the The scientists also believe the cover crop allows the tomato root system to produce increased levels of cytokinins, a class of plant hormones that delay senescence and let the plant live longer. With the genes identified that impart disease tolerance and
longevity, The research was conducted by Autar K. Mattoo and Vinod Kumar of
the ARS Vegetable Laboratory, Beltsville; James D. Anderson of the ARS Plant
Sciences Institute, Beltsville; and Douglas J. Mills, now at Georgia
David Elstein |