Tomato Breeding for Insect-Pest Resistance

The tomato is susceptible to pest attacks that can lead to damages throughout the crop cycle. Pest control is carried out, mainly, by insecticide and chemical acaricide spraying. However, the use of chemical pest control can cause severe damage to the environment, biological imbalances and deleterious effects on farmers and consumer health, as well as increased production costs. An interesting alternative to minimizing the problems arising from the agrochemical application and maintaining pest populations below the economic damage level is the development of tomato plants displaying resistance to insect and arachnid pests. In this context, the main purpose of this chapter is to provide a review of the techniques applied in this regard, major progresses to date and future prospects for tomato pest-resistance breeding. This chapter is divided into five sections: (1) wild pest-resistant tomato species, (2) allelochemicals that confer pest resistance, (3) techniques used for the introgression of pest resistance genes (4) overview, challenges and prospects for pest-resistant tomato breeding and (5) final considerations