Friday, January 27, 2017

It Seems Like a GMO Tomato But It's Not - Science

The standard litany is 'tomatoes tasted better fifty years ago' and I was alive back then but I really can't say if they were better.  In any case, that's the problem to solve.  (Science Daily:  Key to restoring great tomato flavor discovered)


A helpful picture of tomatoes in case you never saw one.

Modern tomatoes lack sufficient sugars and volatile chemicals critical to better flavor. Those traits have been lost during the past 50 years because breeders have not had the tools to routinely screen for flavor, he said.

- SD


Likely suspicions of their intentions rise from the first statements.

"We're just fixing what has been damaged over the last half century to push them back to where they were a century ago, taste-wise," said Klee, stressing that this technique involves classical genetics, not genetic modification. "We can make the supermarket tomato taste noticeably better."

- SD

No way to know but maybe you think, oh joy, another chemical additive in the food is coming.


Scientists then identified the locations of the good alleles in the tomato genome, he said. That required what's called a genome-wide assessment study.  There, scientists mapped genes that control synthesis of all the important chemicals.  Once they found them, they used genetic analysis to replace bad alleles in modern tomato varieties with the good alleles, Klee said.

- SD

Now maybe you get a little angry with 'no way do I deal with more GMO food!'


Read the article for yourself and beware the really sorry explanation of the genetics behind it but it appears their intention in 'replacing alleles' is to do it in the grand tradition of Luther Burbank.

Because breeding takes time, and the scientists are studying five or more genes, Klee said the genetic traits from his latest study may take three to four years to produce in new tomato varieties.

- SD


There's nothing in the article which indicates there will be any genetic modification except via the standard recombination in normal breeding.  If you're not aware of the goodness of Luther Burbank, you may wish to read further since he was so far ahead of his time.  For just a bit of perspective on how far ahead, Luther Burbank was roughly contemporary with Gregor Mendel.  (WIKI:  Luther Burbank)

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