Scientists Are Using Gene Editing To Create the Perfect Tomato For Your Salad (qz.com)

An anonymous reader shares an article: Geneticists are now using technology to isolate the precise genes responsible for excessive branching and flowering, characteristics which lead to less fruit and thus less yield for farmers. In a study published in the journal Cell last week, geneticist Zachary Lippman of Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory explains his research team's efforts to fix mutated tomatoes using CRISPR gene editing technology. By identifying the genes associated with undesired mutations, Lippman was able to edit them and suppress their effects. After playing with the plant architecture, Lippman's team was ultimately able to engineer highly productive plants that yielded more of the desired fruit and less of the unwanted flowers and branches. Original research paper; further reading on Nature magazine.

Comments

Coldharbour?

[Jogar the Barbarian]

Does Mr. Lippman have permission from Molag Bal to perform this research?

Re:Coldharbour?

[Beau1080p]

Jogar, U must be new hear. Sadly what U posted as a 'first post' isnt funny so Im gonna have 2 ask U 2 leave. Also whassup with ur sig, care 2 explain that 2 us ?

--=Beau=--
(senior editor)

Re:Coldharbour?

[Anonymous Coward]

Since the story is about "tomatoes for your salad", your name is "... Barbarian", and i am a Greek, i think it is a good opportunity to educate you -barbarians- about the perfect Greek salad.

You will need (for 1 serving): 2 big tomatoes (the good old stuff, not this new Genetically Modified crap), 1 medium red onion, 1 big cucumber, 1 small green pepper, a bit of salt, a good portion of feta cheese (the original, with the 2/3 sheep - 1/3 goat milk, from Greece - not the fake "pheta white cow cheese" you barbarians usually eat), some olives (preferably of the Greek Kalamon variety), 1 stingy person to add red vinegar, 1 wasteful person to add olive oil, and 1 crazy person to mix them.

You are welcomed!

Re:Coldharbour?

[cayenne8]

This part stood out to me...

was ultimately able to engineer highly productive plants that yielded more of the desired fruit and less of the unwanted flowers and branches.

Err....."unwanted flowers"? I mean, you know those flowers are the parts of the tomato plants that turn INTO tomato fruits, eh???

If they get rid of the flowers in addition to the excess branches...you'll just have leaves left....no tomatoes.

Re:Coldharbour?

[OrangeTide]

Tomatoes aren't even Greek, it's a Mesoamerican food that you've culturally appropriated.

Re:Coldharbour?

[sodul]

I don't usually grow tomato plants myself but it is a common practice for tomato growers to trim the plants to reduce the number of branches and flowers so that more energy will go toward less fruits that will be stronger, bigger and more flavorful than if the plan had been left alone. I guess here the gene selection is to create a better balance between the number of total flowers and the marketable quality of the fruits.

Re: Coldharbour?

[corychristison]

It's the suckers you want to prune.

A sucker is a branch that grows out of an existing 'joint', where a branch has already grown.

The sucker will literally 'suck' the life out of the existing limb, yielding less fruit over all. Pruning it will stop this from happening and increase yield.

I have a 1500sqft vegetable garden in my yard. I have 20 indeterminate tomato plants growing. With proper pruning we'll probably yield about 60-80lb of tomatoes per plant throughout the growing season (1200-1600lb total).

Re:Coldharbour?

[rtb61]

Still kind of seems stupid to waste all that science on tomato plant making better tomatoes, when constructing from scratch you can getter algae to produce storage pods the create the perfect tomato fruit, no seeds, a cross between the flesh carrying the seed and the rest of the fruit, really fast growing, no allergens, lots of vital trace elements built into the fruit, the perfect size, maybe even squarish for a better sandwich slice. All producible in a storage tank, close to demand and at high volumes.

Seriously why waste time fucking with existing vegetables, fruit, grain, meat, what ever, when you can engineer algae to do it all for us. If you think of algae more as the kelp variety https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/..., if makes it more apparent how every part, the leaf, the stalk, the storage pods, can all be DNA engineered to produce what ever you want, in high volumes with very low allergens, actual super foods. Any flavour, any texture and any range of trace elements, as well as of course sugars and proteins.

Re:Coldharbour?

[Anonymous Coward]

Go eat your soylent already if that's what you want to eat.

Just say NO

[Anonymous Coward]

to GMO.

Re:Just say NO

[ArmoredDragon]

Why? GMO has been saving lives for decades now. Literally, many people would die without it. And I'm not just talking about starvation, I'm also talking about diabetic patients.

Re:Just say NO

[sexconker]

XKCD is never obligatory.

Re:Just say NO

[Anonymous Coward]

Because tomatoes suck. No tomatoes for me, ever.

Re:Just say NO

[mrclevesque]

GMOs have not been saving people from starvation.

Re:Just say NO

[OrangeTide]

to GMO.

Rawr! Science BAD!

Re:Just say NO

[Anonymous Coward]

First off, in terms of starvation, that's not even remotely true. The first GMO didn't show up until the early '80s, by that time we had the ability to produce enough food using conventional techniques to feed everybody.

Unless you're one of those morons that thinks that hybridization results in a GMO, in which case, people shouldn't take anything you say on the subject seriously as you have no idea what you're talking about.

Secondly, the issue of GMOs isn't so much that they're GMOs, the issue is that it's being done in a way that's irresponsible and reckless. If they want to monkey around with these things in a lab or otherwise prevent them from mixing with other plants in the wild that wouldn't be much of an issue. The issue is that the GMOs are being allowed to spread and being experimented with in fields where they can spread on their own.

Re:Just say NO

[Anonymous Coward]

No, they haven't. The first GMOs didn't show up until the early '80s. We'd already solved the problem of hunger by that time, the Chinese had figured out how to feed themselves. Here in the US we've been paying farmers not to produce for decades.

This whole business of GMOs being necessary to prevent starvation isn't based in any sort of objective facts, it's a lie that proponents use to try and get people on the side of reckless agricultural practices.

Re:Just say NO

[Applehu Akbar]

So is the flat-Earth lobby buying the idea that gen editing is not UGGA BOOGA OMG ZOMBIE GMO?

Re:Just say NO

[Anonymous Coward]

The Flat Earth Society is no joke, they have members around the globe.

Re:Just say NO

[MrL0G1C]

to GMO.
Rawr! Science BAD!

Rawr! ALL science good.... Is what the GM supporters want us to believe which of course isn't true and GM supporters like to ignore the multiple downsides of rapidly mutating nature in a haphazard manner.

Re:Just say NO

[Anonymous Coward]

citations needed

Re:Just say NO

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.grepthorsoftware.com/

Perfect Tomato?

[hired killer]

So, the perfect tomato for volume production is also the perfect tomato for your salad? I suppose that might be true accidentally.

Re:Perfect Tomato?

[Anonymous Coward]

Too much is made over the quality of commercial tomatoes anyway. I usually buy the cheapest bulk tomatoes that I can find, and if you leave them a well-lit place (typically a windowsill) to vine ripen for a few days to a week, they are indistinguishable from what you might obtain from your garden in the late summer. Many people run home from the store and slice them up and try to put them on a steak or in a salad and of course they're going to taste like poo.

Re:Perfect Tomato?

[phantomfive]

Yeah, I was hoping to read how they created the most delicious tomato possible. I guess that's harder than just increasing yields.

Re:Perfect Tomato?

[Anonymous Coward]

You tasted poo?

Re:Perfect Tomato?

[darthsilun]

...try to put them on a steak...

Huh?

Who puts tomatoes on steak? (I have seen people put ketchup on a steak. WTF.

Re:Perfect Tomato?

[mishehu]

I've rarely tasted a tomato in this country that gave me a wow. Almost all the time they taste like plastic. The exception is home grown tomatoes. So this is just another attempt to increase yields and to hell with concerns over flavor.

Re:Perfect Tomato?

[hey!]

Supermarket tomatoes are largely descended from a mutant discovered in the 1920s which ripened to a uniform red instead of with splotches of green. This produced a very attractive tomato, but with a drawback: it crippled the fruit's photosynthetic capability, resulting in a blander tomato.

Add to this the fact that tomatoes are picked green for ease of shipping and then artificially "ripened" by exposure to ethylene. Ethylene triggers the softening of the tomato and the development of the red carotenoid pigments, but because the tomato has no source of energy the taste doesn't change very much.

Now the changes mentioned in the article are neither here nor there from the point of view of taste. Anyone who's grown tomatoes knows you want to prune late season growth and flowers, so the vine puts the energy into the fruits your going to harvest rather than making lots of useless half-grown fruit. This should, all things being equal, produce better fruit, but it will still have the taste of a Styrofoam ball if you pick it green.

Re:Perfect Tomato?

[bigfinger76]

they are indistinguishable from what you might obtain from your garden in the late summer

No, they're not.

Re:Perfect Tomato?

[DontBeAMoran]

You've tasted styrofoam balls?

Re:Perfect Tomato?

[HornWumpus]

AC doesn't garden...obviously.

Re:Perfect Tomato?

[HornWumpus]

Commercial tomatoes are no better in Europe. In both places, the only ripe commercial tomatoes are in cans or roadside stands.

Re:Perfect Tomato?

[Anonymous Coward]

1 have a garden and won't let their newly acquired tomato to get a bit of sun before consuming them while 2 does not have a garden and keep telling himself that it's what a garden tomato taste...

so you're all wrong!

Re:Perfect Tomato?

[Anonymous Coward]

The perfect tomato will be cylinder-shaped. The diameter will match that of an In-N-Out hamburger. I don't know how much of a tomato they throw away to get those slices.

Re:Perfect Tomato?

[Jzanu]

This is the perfect tomato for human health. This research extends to tomatoes the same concept Norman Borlaug used to optimize the production of wheat and rice in the 60s. You know, the Green Revolution that legitimately kept the world from starving itself to death and decreased warfare. There are major health benefits from consuming tomatoes in any form, and this research increases production and descreases costs in a way that will increase tomato availability.

Re:Perfect Tomato?

[ronaldg]

As long as folks continue to buy produce based on looks and cheap price rather than flavor and quality, the suppliers will continue to provide the pretty crap one usually finds at supermarkets.

Re:Perfect Tomato?

[mishehu]

Never bite into a styrofoam cup even by accident?

Re:Perfect Tomato?

[mnemotronic]

Yeah, I was hoping to read how they created the most delicious tomato possible. I guess that's harder than just increasing yields.

Efficient mass production, not flavor and nutritional content, are the goals of this research. The focus is more tomatoes per acre and higher yields on the grocer's shelf. Obviously the resulting tomato replica has to look like a tomato, act like a tomato, taste kinda like a tomato and be more-or-less non-toxic. If it fails the last 2 criteria we'll see if marketing spin it. The tomato, like the consumer, is a product to be manipulated for the profitability of the corporation.

Re:Perfect Tomato?

[bluefoxlucid]

Tomatoes are harvested green and shipped. They don't develop the sugars that make them sweet because they're not ripened on the vine. Were they vine-ripened, shipping them to remote states would land you with rotting tomatoes.

In practice, tomato flavor is related to the distance shipped from the harvesting operation. The logistics to get tomatoes to your table with less time between picking and purchasing are responsible for providing better flavor.

Re:Perfect Tomato?

[mishehu]

But even if you're local to where the tomato production is, you STILL have to go out of your way to get tomatoes that have any real flavor to them. That's what's so frustrating.

Re:Perfect Tomato?

[coolmoe2]

This is sort of by design. The reason they are harvested early is so you don't get over ripe mush by time they ship them and receive them at the supermarket.

It's also why locally farmed produce is usually better because they can fully vine ripen and still get on the shelves before they start to look awful.

Re:Perfect Tomato?

[kamapuaa]

People complain about this a lot, but as a dork who grew tomatoes at home and looked up tomato forums, it's generally acknowledged that tomatoes don't really ripen on the vine. Once they start changing color at all, or even slightly before, you can pull them and put them in a paper bag. They will taste exactly the same upon getting ripe. In some areas of the country this is very common because of pests (squirrels, etc.) that eat half-ripened tomatoes left on the vine.

Re:Perfect Tomato?

[HornWumpus]

Even if you live in one of the largest tomato producing regions, the ones in the grocery store are still harvested underripe. The ripe ones go to sauce.

You'd think they could send ripe fruit to the stores right around the corner while it was in season, but they don't.

In northern CA, before the giant cannery outside Davis closed, the tomatoes on the side of the highway (lost in transport to the cannery) were better than those in the stores.

Re:Perfect Tomato?

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh... the wheat varieties cardiologists in some countries are now linking directly to obesity? Great, soon tomatoes will be off of diets too. Thanks for the heads up.

Re: Perfect Tomato?

[dj245]

Apples have made great progress since the Red Delicious era. They may be able to make a tomato that tastes good and is commercially convenient. Some of the cherry tomato varieties nowadays are terrific.

Re:Perfect Tomato?

[reboot246]

No, no, no! Put the tomatoes in a paper bag on your countertop and keep them out of the heat and sun. And never, ever put one in a refrigerator.

There's no way a commercially grown tomato can taste as good as a home-grown heirloom variety. Taste has been thrown out the door in favor of firmness and easier picking. Commercial tomatoes are tough-skinned to be able to stand the picking, handling, and shipping without turning to mush before you buy them. If you don't want to grow your own, then buy from local growers at the farmer's market.

Until you've had a REAL vine-ripened HEIRLOOM tomato, you don't know what a tomato is supposed to taste like. Heirloom (open-pollinated non-hybrid) are the best you can get, plus you can save the seeds to plant next year.

I grew up growing tomatoes and have raised thousands of them over the past 50 years. I know of what I speak.

Re:Perfect Tomato?

[hcs_$reboot]

Obviously the perfect tomato that gives the perfect amount of profit.

Re:Perfect Tomato?

[Anonymous Coward]

Exactly this.

But, the problem is, most people don't know or care about this at all. Not only commercial scale, but also what I call "focus group food", is all the average person actually wants. "You don't know what people want" you say? See above about focus groups, that is what they are for, to determine what the largest market segments actually will buy (that is actually 'want').

This has practical implications also. Exposing friends and business colleagues who should know better (that is, have previously been exposed to actual food) almost always results in the same thing with things like heirloom tomatoes, field mushrooms, real cheese or even good beer:

"Wow, that's strong. Ooh la la!" (reaches for water).

Most people only know industrial, mass produced food, and -don't actually like things with flavour-. To the largest cross section of the market (including you're mom and uncle) the same, bland things sell the best. The perception/packaging/price/presentation is all that matters. Actual heirloom flavours limit your market. And that sucks, because (for example) those red perfect round things they call tomatoes just aren't.

Re:Perfect Tomato?

[Walter White]

I... leave them a well-lit place (typically a windowsill) to vine ripen ...

vine ripen == ripen on the vine. Once you pick the tomato, you cannot "vine ripen." As others have pointed out, it does make a difference and unless you grow your own or buy from a farm stand, you will never taste the difference.

Commercial growers will value the following characteristics which will make a difference in their bottom line:
* uniformity of maturity to 'ready to pick" (which is green.) so they can harvest at one time.
* uniformity of size and shape to ease handling.
* durability to withstand the rigors of shipping and handling.
* productivity
* pest and disease resistance.

You will notice that flavor and other qualities that make for a pleasant experience at the table aren't desired because they don't make a difference from production through point of sale.

Re:Perfect Tomato?

[bluefoxlucid]

Does "slightly" equate to "roughly 3 weeks"?

Re:Perfect Tomato?

[bluefoxlucid]

My local Safeway has them.

Re:Perfect Tomato?

[drew_kime]

Most people only know industrial, mass produced food, and -don't actually like things with flavour-.

Yup, exactly. Like every time someone says, "this tomato (or steak!) is so sweet," like it's a good thing. No, not everything is supposed to be sweet.

Re:Perfect Tomato?

[Anonymous Coward]

I disagree. There are very good tomatoes that are not heirloom. Rutgers and Beefmaster are quite good. Even old big boys are very good. These are the standards from my childhood. There are many heirlooms that can't touch them for flavor. Mortgage lifters are an example of an overrated heirloom. Saving seeds is a big plus though.

Actually the flavor of some things before the 80's was pretty good. You could even buy real tangerines(Dancy) rather than the sugar water orange things that are now available.

Re:Perfect Tomato?

[mishehu]

You are lucky then. I, on the other hand, suffer plastic. :-)

Tomacco?

[jfdavis668]

Can you splice Tobacco genes in too and create Tomacco?

Re:Tomacco?

[olsmeister]

Kind of...

Re:Tomacco?

[Anonymous Coward]

Obligatory clip

Re: Tomacco?

[wasteoid]

If you're going to splice a tomato with anything else, splice with cannabis. Tobacco is a terrible choice.

Re:Tomacco?

[Applehu Akbar]

Can you splice Tobacco genes in too and create Tomacco?

I suppose you could, but now try keeping the stuff lit.

Re:Tomacco?

[istartedi]

That's interesting. I suppose you could also breed a true tomacco via selective breeding; but there's no incentive. Since there's already some nicotine in green tomatoes it would just be a matter of selecting for higher and higher concentrations. It ought to work just as the cross-breeding of cannabis strains created super high THC content.

I see what you did there...

[Billy the Mountain]

Perfect, CRISPR for the crisper!

Remind me again...

[TimothyHollins]

Is this the part where Monsanto steps in to sodomize every poor person in the region with a billion dollar lawsuit, or does that come later?

Re:Remind me again...

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes now and yes later.

Re:Remind me again...

[mi]

Is this the part where Monsanto steps in to sodomize every poor person in the region

It does not appear, that Monsanto has anything to do with this particular research. Maybe, they will buy the relevant patents later.

In any case, if you make money using somebody else's intellectual property without their permission, you better spend some of it on Vaseline, yes...

Re:Remind me again...

[skoskav]

The stories about Monsanto suing innocent farmers are myths or more complicated than some narratives portray them. Popular Monsanto myths have been debunked over and over, yet they keep being brought up:

http://theness.com/neurologica...
http://www.npr.org/sections/th...
https://geneticliteracyproject...
https://skeptics.stackexchange...

I would at least recommend an excerpt from The Skeptics Guide to the Universe podcast about Monsanto myths:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

Re:Remind me again...

[Anonymous Coward]

It is excellent to see that Monsanto's PR $ isn't going to waste. Whew! Well, back to establishing the oligarchy like a good corporate whore.

Re:Remind me again...

[Anonymous Coward]

It is more interesting to see that you have nothing to counter facts with other than personal attacks. I wonder what that means.

Sunlight

[maestroX]

Without the sunlight tomatoes won't be as tasty as possible.

Re:Sunlight

[DontBeAMoran]

I don't know about you but I don't put dish soap on my tomatoes.

Re:Sunlight

[coolmoe2]

if its good enough for oil covered baby ducks its good enough for your tomatoes. :P

Seriously a light concentration of dish soap will help you wash away aphids nicely without any toxic residue.

Get you a ripe one

[turkeydance]

don't get a hard one ......Guy Clark - Homegrown Tomatoes Lyrics | MetroLyrics https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

flowers and leaves are needed

[Anonymous Coward]

Without flowers, there is NO tomato to harvest.
Without leaves, there is no energy to produce sugars that make the tomato tasts so good.

flavor?

[PhantomHarlock]

I'm more interested in work being done to bring back flavor in tomatoes, which for some time now have been selected for looks rather than taste.

Re:flavor?

[bigfinger76]

Plant heirloom varieties.

Re:flavor?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, pesky loci. Apparently mother nature does not allow min/maxing and mono-cultures for some reasons that we fail to understand.

Re:flavor?

[bluefoxlucid]

Here's an exercise for you.

Grow a tomato plant. When you have large, hard, green tomatoes, pick a few and put them in a brown paper bag.

Eat those tomatoes when they ripen. Compare them to tomatoes which ripen on the vine. As well, hold onto a tomato picked at optimal ripeness, and a tomato picked when green; time how long before each begins to soften, wrinkle, and rot.

You want tasty tomatoes? Live closer to the farm.

Re:flavor?

[HornWumpus]

On what planet does mother nature not allow min/maxing or mono-cultures? Hippies rant about them, but still get their calories from mono-cultured grains.

Re:flavor?

[drew_kime]

They already found it. Grocery stores don't care.

Recently, an industrial grower told Klee what he sees as the Garden Gem’s flaw: It’s a bit small—about 50 grams. (Some very large tomatoes reach a weight of 250 grams.) A small tomato entails incrementally higher labor costs, because it requires a few more plucks per pound.

Tomato growers are open to growing better-tasting varieties in principle, but only if they get paid more for it. Supermarkets, on the other hand, insist that shoppers only care about price. And can you blame them? After decades of eating tomatoes that taste like wet paper towels, no one thinks tomatoes are worth much.

Re:flavor?

[Cyberax]

It's not that simple. Supermarket tomatoes are have to be able to survive the trip to supermarket. So they can't just let them ripen on the vine - it makes the skin brittle and ready to burst. However, if you knock out a couple of genes, then you can decouple the process of ripening from thinning of the skin.

Re:flavor?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not that simple. Supermarket tomatoes are have to be able to survive the trip to supermarket. So they can't just let them ripen on the vine - it makes the skin brittle and ready to burst. However, if you knock out a couple of genes, then you can decouple the process of ripening from thinning of the skin.

you are the problem. The previous reply gave you the answer and you turn around and say something this stupid.

You'll die slow and in pain.

Re:flavor?

[Anonymous Coward]

True, farmers won't give up yield for flavor, but they may not have to. The other poster's link shows that they found some genes correlated with good flavor that were not correlated to yield or bruising. So they will be able to breed good flavor back into them while still keeping the yield and resilience to bruising that farmers require.

I saw this movie

[rsilvergun]

It did not end well. Blood, ketchup everywhere...

The perfect Tomato is....

[bobbied]

NOT on my salad... Where I don't "hate" them.... What am I saying, I hate raw tomatoes in all forms, salads, sandwiches you name it.

Re:The perfect Tomato is....

[DontBeAMoran]

I bet you even hate the tomatoes in your ketchup! Tomato hater!

Re:The perfect Tomato is....

[Anonymous Coward]

yup

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mushroom_ketchup

Re:The perfect Tomato is....

[Strider-]

I'm with you... I love anything Tomato, as long as it's cooked. Sun dried tomatos? yum... Sauces, diced, canned, etc... ? Yum... Catsup? well, that's mostly just corn syrop, vinegar, and spices, but it's fine in moderation.

But raw tomato? no thanks. I've tried many, including those where I'm told their fantastic, and they just don't sit well. I'll eat them if served to be polite, but I'd rather not.

Re:The perfect Tomato is....

[bobbied]

Ketchup is cooked.... I like ketchup, pizza, even tomato soup or sundried tomatoes mixed in my pasta... Heck, I even like tomato chunks in hot soups (as long as they are cooked). But RAW tomatoes? You can have mine... PLEASE take mine....

Re:The perfect Tomato is....

[Applehu Akbar]

Fellow tomato oddball here: raw tomatoes bad, cooked, sun dried or in sauces good.

That's an awful lot of trouble to go to...

[Anonymous Coward]

... for something im just going to throw in the trash.

An example of a bad title

[UnknowingFool]

The title of the paper is: "Bypassing Negative Epistasis on Yield in Tomato Imposed by a Domestication Gene"
The title of the Nature article is: "Fixing the tomato: CRISPR edits correct plant-breeding snafu".

Contrary to what the titles says, scientists are not "perfecting" the tomato in that they are trying to correct for a combination of two mutations by using CRISPR. The mutations are present because of a previous attempt at cross-breeding a wild tomato species with a commercial one.

Perfect Tomato?

[Anonymous Coward]

How is this the perfect tomato? The perfect tomato would have everything to do with texture and taste, not the amount of fruit the plant can produce. I've had the engineered "big, large amount of fruit or large fruit" from tomatoes, watermelons, pumpkins, corn. They all loose their flavor. You make the plant produce more and larger fruit and the flavor disappears.

This isn't the perfect tomato, not even close. Perfect plant for a cash crop farmer, maybe, but that's where the perfection ends. If you don't want your plants to produce extra flowers and branches (making smaller fruits), then do the manual labor and remove them as they grow. You'll get a great tasting product in the end.

Obligatory Movie Reference

[Anonymous Coward]

Attack of the Killer Tomatoes.

GMO no longer evil

[mi]

Did you miss that memo? GMO is no longer evil... To avoid a -1 Redundant, I'll just link to my earlier post on the subject.

Re:GMO no longer evil

[Anonymous Coward]

Did you miss that memo? GMO is no longer evil... To avoid a -1 Redundant, I'll just link to my earlier post on the subject.

GMO itself is not what is evil. It's what Greed does to it that makes it fucking evil.

If you need evidence of this fact, one has to look no further than Monsanto.

Re:GMO no longer evil

[Anonymous Coward]

GMO was never "evil" it was horribly conceived of and reckless. They still haven't addressed the problem of the genes spreading to other plants and seem to have no issue with creating mono-cultures.

At least in this case, they appear to be just taking genes that are naturally found in tomatoes and consolidating them in a way that's much faster than with conventional breeding practices. And more to the point, making tomatoes that are more or less just similar to more desirable plants. The likelihood of harm here is extremely low as the genes in question already exist in tomatoes and can already spread into other closely related plants.

Re:GMO no longer evil

[Anonymous Coward]

When you say GMO is not evil I think you mean to say it may not be evil by accident but of course if the creators of the plant are evil...

They have not published the fact that it will interbreed with ordinary tomatoes and nuterlise their DNA, can only last one generation before needing to be replaced by lab cloned plants and they have also mutated a bacteria that will wipe out the whole crop (only to be released when the patent expires.) This will stop the clones of the plant once the patent expires so everyone has to move to rev 2.68.

Fixed it for you.

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

Scientists Are Using Gene Editing To Create the Perfect Tomato to maximize the mass that can be legally sold as tomato.

Fixed it for you.

If that fruit still has any passing resemblance to a real tomato, it will be removed in the next round of gene editing.

That would be Greaaaat ...

[gordguide]

Oh, wonderful. More tomatoes that are designer-made to generate higher yields for farmers. And just when I thought a supermarket tomato taste had hit rock bottom, they move the goalposts. Obviously, there has been a hue and cry from the grocery consumers of the planet ... they said, as if from one voice:
"Hey, farmers! I want a tomato that tastes more cardboard. The last one I ate, I could still detect a trace of tomato.

Re:That would be Greaaaat ...

[c6gunner]

What reason do you have for believing that these genetic changes will reduce taste?

Re:That would be Greaaaat ...

[coolmoe2]

Become a farmer and grow your own heirloom variety and become the best supplier in the region.

Fixed it for you and BTW you would make tons of cash in the process if you ran it properly.

Uh... what about taste?

[Anonymous Coward]

Store bought tomatoes have little taste to them. The perfect tomato I ever had was a home grown Roma tomato that had so much flavor I nearly had a foodie orgasm.

Second best tomato I ever had were home grown cherry tomatoes.

Tomatoes in the store, regardless of variety, are so bland that you might as well use them as food coloring.

I think we all are nervous

[jediborg]

On the one hand, if they are able to increase production and yields so we are able to feed more people, that would be great.

On the other hand, if they increase production and yields but a majority of it is wasted because the product expires and there isn't enough financing to ship it to starving countries (kinda like the situation the US is already in), that would be bad.

On the other other hand if they change the genetics and the plants end up turning everyone into zombies that would be bad

On the other other other hand if these CRISPR changes are good and we keep them around for 15 years and then realize those genes we edited out would have protected the plants from the latest fungal infection that wipes out half the crops and causes food shortages that would be really really bad!

I would be more worried about monocultures

[TomR teh Pirate]

There are interesting things that genes do besides what you think you're doing. For example, the famous Russian experiments to breed aggression towards humans out of captive foxes over several generations has had the curious side effect of the foxs' progeny having more dog-like physical characteristics such as floppy ears and less bushy tails. One looks at tomato plants, thinks about their evolutionary imperative to spread their own genes through fruit creation, and still those plants engage in "excessive" branching. There may an evolutionary reason for this that possibly has nothing to do with spreading fruit and instead makes the plant more resistant to disease, for example. The branching is perhaps just a side effect of disease tolerance. This isn't to say that I'm nervous about this, but when monoculture crops are established you also run other kinds of agricultural risks. The Cavendish banana is apparently in serious trouble due to its inability to resist fungal infections.

Re:I would be more worried about monocultures

[Anonymous Coward]

There are interesting things that genes do besides what you think you're doing. For example, the famous Russian experiments to breed aggression towards humans out of captive foxes over several generations has had the curious side effect of the foxs' progeny having more dog-like physical characteristics such as floppy ears and less bushy tails.

One looks at tomato plants, thinks about their evolutionary imperative to spread their own genes through fruit creation, and still those plants engage in "excessive" branching. There may an evolutionary reason for this that possibly has nothing to do with spreading fruit and instead makes the plant more resistant to disease, for example. The branching is perhaps just a side effect of disease tolerance.

This isn't to say that I'm nervous about this, but when monoculture crops are established you also run other kinds of agricultural risks. The Cavendish banana is apparently in serious trouble due to its inability to resist fungal infections.

This is banana 2.0, Banana 1.0 fell to a relative of this same fungus in the 1950s.
Let the scientists, science harder though, it will surely work next time.

Perfect?

[Hognoxious]

Scientists Are Using Gene Editing To Create the Perfect Tomato For The Supermarkets.

Keeps forever because it contains even more water than normal tomatoes. In consequence of that, doesn't taste of much. Cube shaped for more efficient storage.

Wow

[Anonymous Coward]

We all love GMO's now that Trump is president!

More Umbrella Corporation

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh goodie. I'm just wondering if I'm going to live long enough to see humanity annihilate themselves with botched genetic engineering. How long until someone edits the genome of some crop or other to be more 'pest resistant', and that 'pest resistance' just happens to do something to kill humans, or make us infertile, or some other extinction-level event? Seriously, they spend hundreds of millions of dollars developing these things, then they bribe the FDA, bribe whoever they have to, pay hush money, buy out researchers who have research showing it's harmful and then bury the evidence under NDAs and outright deletion of data, so they can rush it to market and make as much profit as they possibly can before too many people notice that it's not completely benign and harmless.

Buyer Beware

[JimSadler]

We already have some very poor tomatoes due to genetic alteration. They may do many things but they don't eat well. Apples are now a disaster. I haven't had a decent apple in years. Some are almost like biting into wood. Few have decent flavor. It is now at the point that I don't buy apples as they simply are great looking but lousy eating. The trouble seems to be that the crops are altered to suit production but not altered to enhance enjoyment. Go in a grocery store and try to find a really tart apple. Good luck.

Re:Buyer Beware

[RuffMasterD]

I have the same problem with plums. The last time I bought plums from the supermarket I left them in the fruit bowl for a month waiting for them to ripen. They never did, or rather, that variety was bred to remain hard when ripe so they can stay in transit and on shop shelves longer. They bred the taste out too. I won't buy plums from the supermarket ever again. Luckily we have a really good farmers market here with real fruit.

Re:Buyer Beware

[Walter White]

Apples are now a disaster. I haven't had a decent apple in years. Some are almost like biting into wood. Few have decent flavor. .... Go in a grocery store and try to find a really tart apple. Good luck.

I wouldn't describe a Red Delicious as woody. Mealy would be more accurate. And the flavor is not good. Granny Smith would be woody but they are tart. Red Delicious is the absolute worst apple, bred for long keeping and appearance and probably remains the best seller. There are newer boutique varieties (Honeycrisp?) that I haven't tried due to price but here in the Midwest we get Jonathan and Jonagold which I enjoy.

This is not the perfect tomato.

[MiniMike]

The perfect tomato would be one that would actually grow well in a planter on my deck and would slug any squirrels that come near it. If it can get past those requirements, it should also taste great.

Commercial tomatoes

[Archfeld]

Commercial tomatoes are crap in general. Hard as a rock, tasteless, and generally mealy textured fruits. The only good tomato is a home grown one, and they do grow well in a wide variety of climates in hundreds of breeds. I live in Yuma Arizona and it is hot as hell here and I can still grow tomatoes almost year round.

Re:Commercial tomatoes

[OrangeTide]

Tomatoes love the heat, they are from places with longer summers than Arizona. But tomatoes like some humidity too, which can be resolved with frequent watering or a green house depending on your climate.

I can speak from experience here that tomatoes grow just fine in Michigan too. Warm humid summers there are fine. To extend the growing season a bit, we put wall-o-water around them in the early season to keep the spring frost off the young plants. Once summer hits they take off and it's hard to find enough baskets for all the tomatoes.

If you can get your hands on heirloom tomatoes they are great for home gardens. Because at the grocery store they are very expensive and tend to not transport well. But a home gardener doesn't have the scalability problems of a commercial operation. And you're saving $3-$5 for each heirloom tomato you pick at home versus buying it from the store, which is a huge return for some slightly more expensive seeds. Normal beef steak tomato seeds are around $0.05/seed, an heirloom is more like $0.20/seed. 4x cost, but the seeds aren't really the biggest cost for a home gardener. Yields for heirlooms can different greatly, which I didn't account for here. But they can also be very tasty and colorful.

Varieties I recommend for starting off: Mr. Stripey, Cherokee purple, Brandywine and Black Krim.

Mod parent up!

[Anonymous Coward]

Senior in high school or college?

Re:Mod parent up!

[thewolfkin]

Senior in high school or college?

citizen

We get the tomatoes that we deserve

[ljw1004]

Just outside the airport in Bologna, Italy, there used to be a huge billboard showing just a tomato resting atop an outstretched hand. The text said:

FOR EACH EUROPEAN COUNTRY, THE TOMATO THAT IT DESERVES

I think that's what we've been getting, and I hate it!

Troll Articla

[Guybrush_T]

Calling that the "perfect tomato for your salad" is obviously a huge troll ...

I already have perfect tomatoes

[hackus]

I grow them in my Hydroponics bay.

Leave them alone please. I don't want chemical side affects from your immature understanding...childlike actually of proteins and biological science from all you PhD's out there.

American fruits and veggies

[Anonymous Coward]

Americans have been changing fruits and veggies for quite a while to produce fruits and veggies that produce a higher yield but have the unfortunately taste like shit.

What could possibly go wrong?

[Chrisq]

What could possibly go wrong? Maybe this?