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

Posted by msmash on from the sciencing-the-tomatoes dept.

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.

3 of 125 comments (clear)

  1. Perfect Tomato? by hired+killer · · Score: 5, Insightful

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

    1. Re:Perfect Tomato? by reboot246 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      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.

  2. flavor? by PhantomHarlock · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.