Variations of leaf morphology, photosynthetic traits and water-use efficiency in Western-Mediterranean tomato landraces

Modern tomato (Solanum lycopersicum L.) breeding has mainly focused on increasing productivity under unlimited watering. In contrast, some Mediterranean accessions have been traditionally cultivated under water shortage and selected on the basis of their water-use efficiency (WUE). Ramellet and Penjar landraces were planted with other traditional, old and modern inbreeds, under full irrigation. In order to found differences between the tomato accessions, gas-exchange and leaf morphology measurements were performed. Despite high variability, Ramellet and Penjar presented clear differences compared to modern cultivars, mostly related to leaf morphology and photosynthetic traits, while no differences were found in WUE. Results highlighted that better leaf CO2 conductance might be a main factor determining the improvement of net CO2 assimilation and WUE.