ARTICLE Open Access Conservation of Genetic Diversity of Tomatoes (Lycopersicon esculentum Mill.) Cristian ALBU 1 , Aurel MAXIM 1* , Raluca-Maria PÂRLICI 1 1 Department of Engineering and Environmental Protection, Faculty of Agriculture, University of Agricultural Sciences and Veterinary Medicine, Cluj-Napoca, 400372, Romania * Corresponding author: A. Maxim e-mail: aurel.maxim@usamvcluj.ro Abstract Among the main problems encountered with crop plants, the most important one is represented by genetic erosion. At world level this issue has been debated within the Convention on Biodiversity adopted in UN Conference of Rio de Janeiro and The International Convention regarding Genetic Resources of Plants for Alimentation and Agriculture. In Europe, the regulations in this field are made by the European Directive 98/95 EEC. Across time tomatoes have suffered a heightened process of genetic diversity, phenomenon caused by industrialized farming which is based on the use of very uniform varieties with high productivity. The extension of green agriculture, has led to the use of landraces, because they respond best to the traditional farming systems. In Western Europe organizations of peasants had been founded and, they are involved in different activities aiming at conservation of traditional forms of agriculture and the use of old varieties. In Romania the institutions with continuous preoccupations in the field of vegetal genetic conservation, especially landraces, are the Gene Bank from Suceava and UASMV Cluj-Napoca. By using conservation methods (in situ and ex situ), the genetic erosion surely phenomenon of vegetal genetic resources, implicitly tomatoes, is reduced, the future generations will benefit from valuable genetic resources. Keywords: agrobiodiversity, conservation, genetic erosion, landraces, tomatoes. INTRODUCTION Among the main problems encountered with the crop plants, the most important one is represented by genetic erosion, defined as ”loss over time of genetic diversity between populations or varieties from the same species or reduction of genetic basis of a species due to human intervention or climate changes” according to Directive 2008/62/EC. This topical issue has led to the need to protect the vegetal genetic resources, protection stimulated by Conventions (at world level) and directives (at European level). At world level, this issue has been debated in the Convention on Biodiversity adopted at the UN Conference of Rio de Janeiro (1992) and at The International Convention regarding Genetic Resources of Plants for Alimentation and Agriculture (2001). At European level, the regulations in this field are made by the European Directive 98/95 EEC but also by other directives (Zaharia, 2003; Maxim, 2008). Across time tomatoes have suffered a strong reduction of genetic diversity and this increasing trend is known as genetic erosion. Human intervention on the intensification of genetic erosion is high and has severe implications on the future programmes for biodiversity management and use (Kulus, 2018). Industrialized agriculture uses varieties with high uniformity, and this practice entails also a high vulnerability for the varieties used. In order to reduce as much as possible, the risk of failure in crop, we recommend the use of as many assortments and varieties as possible. The local varieties have frequently genes