Agricultural and Life Sciences (IFAS)
Chitwood-Brown Lab
Led by Jessica Chitwood-Brown · Horticultural Sciences
What we study
The lab develops tomato varieties with traits like disease resistance and climate resilience using conventional and molecular breeding tools. They collaborate with growers and industry leaders to improve Florida's tomato crops.
What working here is like
- Wet lab
- Computational
- Plants
- Coding helps
- Projects
- 4
- Papers
- 5
Current projects
Fusarium wilt resistance
Breeds tomatoes that resist Fusarium wilt, a soil disease, using conventional and molecular breeding tools.
Heat and salt tolerance
Breeds tomatoes that tolerate heat and salt stress, using conventional and molecular breeding tools.
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Bacterial spot resistance
Breeds tomatoes that resist bacterial spot, using conventional and molecular breeding methods.
Multispectral imaging and machine learning
Using multispectral imaging and machine learning to study fruit set in tomatoes.
Summaries are written by AI in plain language from public symposium abstracts and may be imperfect.
Recent papers, explained
- Use of high-resolution melting for the rapid diagnosis of thrips (Insecta: Thysanoptera) in legume crops in South Florida
2026 · Journal of Economic Entomology
Uses high-resolution melting to quickly identify thrips pests in South Florida legume crops.
- Quantitative trait loci associated with improved fruit yield under heat-stress conditions in fresh-market tomato
2026 · Frontiers in Plant Science
Finds genetic regions linked to tomato yield under heat stress in Florida.
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- Genotype-by-environment interactions and local adaptation shape selection in the US National Chip Processing Trial
2024 · Theoretical and Applied Genetics
Tests whether potato varieties adapt to different growing conditions in a chip-making trial.
- Tomato domestication rather than subsequent breeding events reduces microbial associations related to phosphorus recovery
2024 · Scientific Reports
Shows how domestication, not later breeding, changes tomato's ability to recover phosphorus from soil.
- Novel Sources of Resistance to Fusarium oxysporum f. sp. lycopersici Race 3 Among Solanum pennellii Accessions
2021 · Journal of the American Society for Horticultural Science
Finds new wild tomato varieties resistant to a harmful fungus affecting tomato crops.
Plain-language summaries are AI-written and reviewed by us; check the paper for details.
How to reach out
Jessica Chitwood-Brown hasn't set up this page yet. You can also look them up in the UF directory (search “Jessica Chitwood-Brown”).