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Scientists have quantified flavor-associated chemicals in 398 varieties of tomatoes in order to create a "roadmap" for improving flavor:
Bite into a supermarket tomato and you'll probably notice something missing: taste. Scientists think they can put the yum back into the grocery tomato by tinkering with its genetic recipe. Researchers are reinstalling five long-lost genetic traits that add much of the sweet-yet-acidic taste that had been bred out of mass-produced tomatoes for the past 50 years. They're using mostly natural breeding methods, not genetic modification technology.
[...] One key issue is size. Growers keep increasing individual tomato size and grow more per plant. The trouble is that there is a limit to how much sugar each tomato plant can produce. Bigger tomatoes and more of them means less sugar per tomato and less taste, Klee said. So Klee and colleagues looked at the genomes of the mass-produced tomato varieties and heirloom tomatoes to try to help the grocery tomatoes catch up to their backyard garden taste.
[...] Klee isolated some sugar genes and ones more geared to pure taste, but figured those won't work as well because they clash against shipping and size needs. So he found areas that affect the aroma of tomatoes but not size or heartiness. Reintroducing those into mass-produced tomatoes should work because smell is a big factor in taste, he said. Altering genes in a lab would make the process faster, but because of consumer distrust and regulations, Klee is opting for natural breeding methods – with help from an electric toothbrush to spread pollen.
It sounds like the quest for a tasty tomato will be delayed for years because GMOs are scaaaary.
Also at NYT.
A chemical genetic roadmap to improved tomato flavor (DOI: 10.1126/science.aal1556) (DX)
Previously: Breeding Wildness Back Into Our Fruits and Vegetables
Two Approaches to Enhancing Tomato Flavor
Tomatoes Grown in Australian Desert from Sunshine and Seawater
(Score: 5, Informative) by Phoenix666 on Monday January 30 2017, @02:00AM
If you've ever had heirloom tomatoes from a greenmarket, you'd know how much flavor modern supermarket tomatoes have lost. If you've ever grown your own, you'd know how much better it is to pick them when they're ripe instead of picking them long before they're at peak so they can be transported to market.
The good news is, you can do those things now, no need to wait for plant geneticists to figure anything out. If you don't have a good source of seeds near you, you can send away to outfits like the Seed Savers Exchange [seedsavers.org]. It's a non-profit that deals in heirloom seeds of more varieties of plants than you've ever seen.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 1, Troll) by takyon on Monday January 30 2017, @02:05AM
I don't think we should discount geneticists and GMOs just because "muh seed bank" exists. Not to say you shouldn't engage in your organic seed exchange, but modification will be important in the future.
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(Score: 5, Insightful) by AthanasiusKircher on Monday January 30 2017, @02:27AM
I don't think we should discount geneticists and GMOs just because "muh seed bank" exists.
I don't read GP saying that at all. It seems a response to your editorializing in the summary: "It sounds like the quest for a tasty tomato will be delayed for years because GMOs are scaaaary." Point being: you don't need to go on a "quest for a tasty tomato," GMO or otherwise. Just buy some seeds from a decent variety, pick them when ripe, and eat within a day or two. Instant "tasty tomato."
Supermarket tomatoes are bred for different purposes -- mostly transport, shelflife, maximum production, and ability to continue ripening after being picked early (which increases shelflife more). Yes, it would be great to ALSO breed them for taste, but that hasn't been the priority. And tomatoes are certainly not unique in this regard, as this basic standard is true of a lot of food one buys in an American supermarket.
I had the privilege of living in Italy for a summer a while back. It was a true revelation what one could buy at the local market, even in the middle of Rome (i.e., not traveling out to some earthy crunchy farmshare or whatever one has to do in a lot of the U.S. to find decent produce). And not some special "organic" market or whatever -- just the place everybody shopped. Fruit and vegetables tasted amazing and incredibly cheap. Often not as "perfect" as American store produce, but I'll give up a few apricots with worms if I can get a a kilo of amazing ones for a couple Euros. I lost quite a few pounds of extra weight I had been carrying around for a few years without even realizing it until I got back and people were like, "Did you eat anything there?" -- because I just loved eating fresh produce every day.
So, what this story really is about isn't the "quest for the tasty tomato" -- it's a quest to try to have reasonably tasty tomatoes AND the typical American food production system... the system that gave us such delicacies as iceberg lettuce.
(Score: 2) by bradley13 on Monday January 30 2017, @11:00AM
Fresh produce markets are a feature through much of Europe. Even the supermarkets here are getting the message, selling produce "from the local region". Both of these support smaller growers, with short transport distances, who can then sell specialty products like heirloom fruits and veggies.
It's been a while since I was in the US, but my impression was that places like Whole Foods have usurped this market. Their stuff didn't strike me as any better than what was in the normal supermarket (although they did have a fancier import section), but the prices - geez - people pay that?
Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Monday January 30 2017, @04:31PM
It's the "Magical Supermarket Portal" myth that obtains in urban America. Unless the produce is carried into and out of the magical supermarket portal, it can't be edible or good for you. Other produce might have dirt on it, which is widely known to be poisonous, or have a little bit of insect nibbling at the edges, and that could give you the plague and wipe out your entire neighborhood before you know it. So it's super, super important to pay Whole Foods $5-6/lb to carry it into its magical supermarket portal for you.
I have personally seen people protest vociferously, even physically resist, consumption of non-magical supermarket portal produce until morsels are forced into their mouths and the light of understanding comes into their eyes. Shy of that, you could drop those people into the Garden of Eden, surrounded by luscious vegetables and fruits of every description, and they would starve to death, paralyzed by fear of eating something that had not had the magical inventory wand passed over it.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 3, Funny) by bob_super on Monday January 30 2017, @06:14PM
It's understandable, man.
If you have an allergic reaction to a fruit in the Garden of Eden, who's your family going to sue? God?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 30 2017, @02:34AM
We really enjoy the "Flavor Bombs" cherry tomatoes from a greenhouse operation in Michigan. According to their website, these are from French seeds-- https://www.sunsetgrown.com/products/flavor-bombs-2/ [sunsetgrown.com]
Other varieties they raise are developed by old fashioned breeding, no need for direct genetic modification.
Our local Wegmans has been carrying them, not cheap, but then you get what you pay for. Yum!! (no commercial connection, just a satisfied customer)
(Score: 1, Troll) by tisI on Monday January 30 2017, @04:29AM
Vine ripened organic tomatoes taste like a tomato should.
GMO crap off the shelf tomatoes tastes like putty. Dry and flavorless.
Always been a no-brainer for me.
You can keep your pesticides and GMO drek.
"Suppose you were an idiot...and suppose you were a member of Congress...but I repeat myself."
(Score: 3, Insightful) by takyon on Monday January 30 2017, @10:32AM
Post discarded.
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(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 30 2017, @11:38AM
rareseeds.com
rarepalmseeds.com (for less usual plants)
and
tradewindfruits.com (for even MORE unusual plants. Such as Cacao!)
There are dozens of other places carrying stuff you wouldn't believe. You can also purchase mushroom plugs of differing varieties, which can be grown in fresh moistened logs for all your culinary fungal needs.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Monday January 30 2017, @04:42PM
Thanks for the resources. I have been looking for bamboo forever.
Have you had luck with mushroom plugs? I got some from Fungi Perfecti I put in 3-4 years ago without anything fruiting. I'm a patient guy when it comes to such things, but eventually you wonder if you should try again or simply wait longer.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 30 2017, @07:05PM
Gourmet Mushrooms [shroomery.org]
Gourmet and Medicinal Mushrooms [shroomery.org]
growing gourmet on PF [shroomery.org]
Oysters on Cardboard/Paper [shroomery.org]
Oyster Grow Log - LC/agar to straw pellet substrate, open air (description of the tek I used) [shroomery.org]
PODS TEK – Invitro tek growing with BRF or Grass Seed: a simple, self-contained, single-step method [shroomery.org]
Vendor List [shroomery.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 30 2017, @08:10PM
http://www.tradewindsfruit.com/ [tradewindsfruit.com]
(Score: 2) by Hawkwind on Monday January 30 2017, @06:49PM
Another thing about heirlooms is the wide range of flavors. Only downside is getting spoiled, it's to the point where I'll skip fresh tomatoes outside of the May - September window in my area (granted that includes more than heirlooms but fresh Early Girls in May are wonderful).