Industrial farming with intensive breeding has deprived most crop food varieties of their resistance to pests, diseases and climate stresses. Wild relatives of these crops may possess genes that confer enhanced resistance. Such genes of resistance can subsequently be introduced into commercial varieties. McDaniel et al assessed a wild species of tomato for resistance to the glasshouse whitefly. They found several resistance mechanisms present in the wild tomato that are potential targets for introduction into the commercial tomato genome.
