On Jan. 28, 2004, the International Tomato Genome Sequencing Project was begun by an international consortium including participants from Korea, China, the United Kingdom, India, the Netherlands, France, Japan, Spain, Italy and the U.S.

The initial approach was to sequence only the euchromatic sequence using a BAC-by-BAC approach, and in total more than 1,200 BACs were sequenced.

In 2009, a complementary whole-genome shotgun approach was initiated, which in conjunction with other data yielded high quality assemblies.