Development of a large fruited tomato with a high level of resistance to bacterial w ( Ralstonia solanacearum ) . Scott, J . W . 1 , Jones, J . B . 2 , and Somodi G . C . 1 1 University of Florida, IFAS, Gulf Coast Research & Education Center, Bradenton, FL 34203 2 University of Florida, Department of Plant Pathology, PO Box 110680, Gainesville, FL 32611 - 0680 Bacterial wilt is a serious disease problem in many humid, tropical growing areas around the world . Unfortunately breeding for resistance has been difficult for a number of reasons including different races, complex resistances, and environmental effects on disease expression that have limited the development of artificial se ilt edling screening techniques . here have also been reports of associations of resistance with small fruit size (Acosta et al . , e e had r its rous selections over the years with large fruit size turned out to ave less resistance than that of Hawaii 7997 . ttempts were made to break the apparent linkage of a hypothetical fruit size gene with a selecting resultant F 2 rogeny for resistance and larger fruit . Eight breeding lines were originally crossed with from this ne was crossed to Fla . 7834, a large - fruited breeding line and progeny from the F 2 and rge and designated Fla . 8109 and Fla . 8109B . ansplanting to the field, the plants 30 days past the cotyledon stage were inoculated with the pathogen in Todd ® planter flats . Each plant received 5 mL of a suspension containing 10 7 cfu/mL of the bacteria . Twenty - two days after the inoculation the plants in the field were scored for disease symptoms that included death, stunting, wilting, and/or chlorosis leading to browning of foliage . Plants were checked later in the season but there was no further disease development . In Spring 2003 Fla . 8109, Fla . 8109B, Neptune, Horizon, and Sanibel were grown in a completely randomized design with two replications and 4 to 6 plants per plot . Fruit reaching the breaker or beyond stage were harvested three times at weekly intervals . For each plot, fruit were counted and weighed in order to obtain yield and fruit size information . T 1964) although other researchers did not find such an association (Danesh et al . , 1994; Monma and Sakata, 1993) . Some of the most widely adapted sources of resistance hav been a series of lines from Hawaii, bred by Dr . J . C . Gilbert in the 1960’s and 1970’s . In our breeding program we use mainly <