Holmes, Francis O.
A tendency to escape infection by tobacco-mosaic virus, formerly available only in plants that were heterozygous for a dominant gene that confers this resistance, now has been incorporated in a line of tomato that bears the controlling gene in homozygous condition. A stock of seeds has been deposited under the Plant Introduction number 235673 at the North Central Regional Seed Storage, Regional Plant Introduction Station, Ames, Iowa. Fruits in the resistant line are large, red when ripe, resistant to cracking, and somewhat variable in depth. Dominance of the gene for resistance permits its use in F1 hybrids. Plants of the resistant line vary moderately in fruit type; this may permit F1 crosses to be made between susceptible varieties and individual resistant plants that tend to resemble them. Resistant seedlings show dwarfish characteristics but when set in the field they grow with apparently normal vigor.