Evaluation and selection of tomato accessions (Solanum section Lycopersicon) for content of lycopene, β-carotene and ascorbic acid

Tomato has been identified as a food of great interest given its nutritional and bioactive components (mainly lycopene, β-carotene and ascorbic acid) and its high consumption rate all year round. Previous works have indicated that some local tomato cultivars and accessions of related species could have great potential, and even as nutraceutical foods. Nevertheless, most local cultivars have disappeared from fields because they have been replaced by hybrids and modern cultivars which produce higher yields and are more disease-resistant. In this work, 49 accessions of underutilized tomato or related species are evaluated in order to recover their use (directly in fields or as variability sources to obtain new cultivars) and increase agrobiodiversity. Fourteen accessions of the cherry type and two of the common tomato type were selected for their high and balanced nutritional properties, causing them to be of great interest for direct human consumption (especially BGV008057, BGV006863 and BGV008060). Furthermore, BGV008365 and BGV012627 (cherry types with over 1.5 times the normal average ascorbic acid content) as well as BGV008166 (Solanum pimpinellifolium accession which presented more than nine times the normal average lycopene content) would be of interest as donor parents for breeding programmes to increase the nutrition properties of commercial varieties.