Scientists working on tomato that grows 24-hours a day

From www.nature.com:

Scientists in the Netherlands are working on a tomato that can grow 24 hours a day.

If grown under continuous light, tomatoes typically develop yellow leaf spotting. This new tomato would allow growers to provide constant lighting to their crop. The scientists reported "a dominant locus on chromosome 7 of wild tomato species that confers continuous light tolerance."

"Genetic evidence, RNAseq data, silencing experiments and sequence analysis all point to the type III light harvesting ?chlorophyll a/b binding protein 13 (?CAB-13) gene as a major factor responsible for the tolerance."

The article abstract suggests that developing tomatoes that can be grown under continuous light could increase annual yield by up to 20 percent.

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