Brazil depends almost entirely on imported strawberry cultivars, which burdens production costs and results in the use of genotypes with less adaptation to the Brazilian cropping conditions. To reverse this scenario, it is necessary to strengthen strawberry breeding in Brazil. Otherwise, the country will remain dependent on imported cultivars and producers will continue to be required to collect royalties. In this context, public institutions in Brazil, such as the State University of the Midwest Paraná (UNICENTRO), have been successfully conducting strawberry breeding programs, with the objective of launching cultivars in the short term. Crosses between the cultivars in use in the country, with the subsequent development and selection of seedlings, have shown to be the way to generate national genotypes better adapted to the tropical and subtropical climate conditions of Brazil. In this work, in addition to the main results obtained so far by the UNICENTRO strawberry breeding program, we report information on strawberry origin, taxonomy and phylogenetic description, genotype sensitivity to photoperiod, breeding history in Brazil, and objectives, methods, and techniques employed by the current strawberry breeding in Brazil.

The selection of superior strawberry genotypes is a complex process due to the high variability after hybridization that is caused by the octoploid nature and the heterozygosis, making the selection of multiple traits difficult. This study aimed to select strawberry hybrids with the potential for fresh consumption and/or processing by applying multivariate analysis to obtain traits of interest simultaneously. Hybrids were obtained from the crossing among seven commercial cultivars, defining a selection of 10% of them. The experimental design consisted of an augmented block design, with two commercial cultivars, Camarosa and Camino Real, as the controls. Different variables, including the number and average mass of commercial fruits, total fruit mass, pH, soluble solids (SS), titratable acidity (TA), SS/TA ratio, reducing sugars, pectin, ascorbic acid, phenolic compounds, and anthocyanin’s, were assessed. The selection of hybrids was based on the Mulamba and Mock rank-summation index, principal component analysis, and Ward’s hierarchical cluster analysis. The selection index was based on different weights being adopted for fresh market and processing. The assessed traits had high variability between hybrids. The highest selection gains were obtained for production traits, but the different weight assignment resulted in different classifications of hybrids for both fresh consumption and processing. Most of the hybrids selected by the index remained in the same group in the principal component and hierarchical cluster analyses, which indicates that multivariate analysis is a valuable tool for assisting in the selection of superior hybrids in the strawberry crop.

The arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMFs) are necessarily biotrophic organisms that associate themselves to the plants’ roots. These organisms colonize the tissues of the radicular cortex, thus establishing a mutualist symbiosis (^{Saggin Júnior & Silva, 2005}). This symbiosis may stimulate the synthesis of secondary metabolites, being able to increase the plant’s tolerance to biotic and abiotic stress (^{Pandey et al., 2018}). In addition to increasing the accumulation of antioxidant components in plants’ tissues, these attributes are potentially beneficial to human health (^{Baslam et al., 2011}).

Tomato crop presents several obstacles that hinder its cultivation, especially the tomato leafminer Tuta absoluta (Lepidoptera: Gelechiidae). To reduce damages caused by this pest, the development of resistant cultivars is one of the main alternatives. In this study we aimed to select tomato genotypes with high acylsugar contents and resistant to tomato leafminer. For this, contrasting F₂RC₁ genotypes for allelochemical contents, resulting from the interspecific cross between cultivar Redenção with processing characteristics, and the wild species Solanum pennellii accession ‘LA-716’, with high acylsugar contents, were submitted to a test of resistance to tomato leafminer with 14 treatments, being eight genotypes with high acylsugar content and four with low acylsugar content, in addition to the parental. Significant correlations and contrasts were observed between acylsugar contents and traits related to the resistance to tomato leafminer. The genotype RVTA-2010-31-pl#177 presented similar behavior to the wild parental, demonstrating potential to advance in the tomato breeding program for industrial processing with resistance to tomato leafminer.

One of the major problems in cultivation of tomato is the occurrence of pests and diseases. The objective of the research was to select genotypes from the second generation of the first backcross (F₂BC₁) between the tomato cultivar for processing S. lycopersicum (cv. Redenção) and the wild access S. habrochaites var. hirsutum (PI-127826), with high levels of zingiberene (ZGB), resistant to the twospotted spider mite Tetranychus urticae (Acari: Tetranychidae). From the F₂BC₁ population. The ZGB content was quantified and five plants with high zingiberene selected (RVTZ 2011-079-117, RVTZ 2011-079-185, RVTZ 2011-079-335, RVTZ 2011-079-345 and RVTZ 2011-079-503) and four with low zingiberene content (RVTZ 2011-079-417, RVTZ 2011-331-460, RVTZ 2011-079-538 and RVTZ 2011-079-548) were selected. Genotypes selected for high and low ZGB content and the parentals S. habrochaites var. hirsutum access PI-127826 and ‘Redenção’ were evaluated for repellency to the twospotted spider mite. There was a significant and inverse correlation between ZGB content and average distances travelled by mites on tomato leaflets. The genotypes of the F₂BC₁ generation with high zingiberene levels RVTZ 2011-079-117, RVTZ 2011-079-185, RVTZ 2011-079-335, RVTZ 2011-079-345 and RVTZ 2011-079-503 are promising for progress in achieving resistant lines to arthropod pests. Among them RVTZ 2011-079-117 stands out for resistance to twospotted spider mite.