QTL responsible for tomato fruit firmness

1. A solanum lycopersicum tomato fruit with significantly increased fruit firmness at the harvesting stage linked to a genetic element in a cultivated solanum lycopersicum tomato plant producing said tomato fruit, wherein said firmness is up to 4 times greater than that of fruit from a control Solanum lycopersicum tomato plant which does not have the said genetic element, wherein said genetic element is the genetic element of solanum lycopersicum Q7774 deposited with NCIMB under accession number 41949, and wherein the said genetic element of Q7774 is linked to at least one DNA marker in the cultivated plant, said at least one DNA marker is selected from the group consisting of:

a) TG599, which can be detected by a forward primer of SEQ ID NO:19 and a reverse primer of SEQ ID NQ:20;

b) NT3374, which can be detected by a forward primer of SEQ ID NO:7 and a reverse primer of SEQ ID NO:8;

c) TG246, which can be detected by a forward primer of SEQ ID NO:17 and a reverse primer of SEQ ID NO:18: and

d) NT5880, which can be detected by a forward primer of SEQ ID NO:9 and a reverse primer of SEQ ID NO:10.

2. The tomato fruit according to claim 1 wherein the harvesting stage is the breaker stage plus 7 days.

3. A cultivated solanum lycopersicum tomato plant which produces the tomato fruit according to claim 1 .

4. A tomato seed which produces the cultivated tomato plant according to claim 3 .

5. Plant part of the cultivated tomato plant according to claim 3 , wherein the plant part comprises the genetic element.

6. A method of producing a cultivated tomato plant which provides fruit with significantly increased fruit firmness by cultivating the tomato seed according to claim 4 .

7. A cultivated tomato plant, or part thereof, obtained by the method according to claim 6 , wherein the plant or part thereof comprises the genetic element.

8. A cultivated solanum lycopersicum tomato plant comprising a QTL responsible for increased fruit firmness at the harvesting stage compared to that of fruit from a control solanum lycopersicum tomato plant, wherein said QTL can be detected by at least one DNA marker, said tomato plant is produced by the method comprising:

a) crossing a donor tomato plant with a recipient tomato plant to provide offspring cultivated tomato plants, wherein said donor plant has the genetic element of solanum lycopersicum Q7774 deposited with NCIMB under accession number 41949,

b) quantitatively determining the firmness in the fruit of said offspring plants,

c) establishing a genetic linkage map that links the observed increased fruit firmness to the presence of at least one DNA marker from said donor plant in said offspring plants and

d) assigning to a QTL the DNA markers on said map that are linked to the increased fruit firmness;

and wherein said genetic element of Q7774 is linked to at least one DNA marker in the donor plant, said at least one DNA marker is selected from the group consisting of:

TG599, which can be detected by a forward primer of SEQ ID NO:19 and a reverse primer of SEQ ID NQ:20;

NT3374, which can be detected by a forward primer of SEQ ID NO:7 and a reverse primer of SEQ ID NO:8:

TG246, which can be detected by a forward primer of SEQ ID NO:17 and a reverse primer of SEQ ID NO:18; and

NT5880, which can be detected by a forward primer of SEQ ID NO:9 and a reverse primer of SEQ ID NQ:10.

9. A hybrid tomato plant, or part thereof, obtained by crossing the cultivated tomato plant according to claim 3 with a second tomato plant, wherein the hybrid tomato plant or part thereof comprises the genetic element.

10. Tomato seed produced by growing the tomato plant of claim 3 , wherein the tomato seed comprises the genetic element.

11. Tomato seed produced by crossing the tomato plant of claim 3 with a second tomato plant to obtain a seed that produces a plant that comprises the genetic element and has significantly increased fruit firmness compared to a control tomato plant.