Supermarkets would dearly like to be able to sell tomatoes that taste like something straight from the home garden.
Now, thanks to the efforts of an international group of over 300 scientists, within five years they may be able to do so – and through conventional breeding techniques, opponents of genetic engineering will be relived to learn.
Formed in 2003, the Tomato Genome Consortium (TGC) The TGC involved scientists in 14 countries, including Argentina, Belgium, Britain, China, France, Germany, India, Israel, Japan, South Korea, the Netherlands and the United States amongst them.
The full genome sequence of a variety of Solanum lycopersicum, as well as the draft sequence of a wild relative,
S. pimpinellifolium was published in a recent issue of the journal Nature. The sequence provides the most detailed look yet at the tomato genome, revealing the order, orientation, types and relative positions of its 35,000 genes.
Not only do researchers believe that will lead to better-tasting commercial fruit. Other important advances will result from this new knowledge to the benefit of both farmer and home gardener. Disease resistance is a major concern both in the field and garden. And as worries increase about the widespread use of pesticides relief will come when it is learnt that the genetic information will reduce their need. Scientists will also better understand the connections between environmental conditions and a successful crop and improved nutritional value.
“Tomatoes are one of the most important fruit crops in the world, both in terms of the volume that we eat and the vitamins, mineral and other phytochemicals that both fresh and processed tomato products provide in our diets,” said Graham Seymour, a professor of biotechnology at Nottingham University, U.K. one of the scientists involved TGC.
On average, each American consumes more than 72 pounds of tomato products a year, according to the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA). Tomatoes are a $2-billion market in the United States, noted
Newsday.
Lead researcher Dr. James Giovannoni, from the Boyce Thompson Institute of Plant Research at Cornell University in New York, said: “Tomatoes genetics underlies the potential for improved taste every home gardener knows and every supermarket desires, and the genome sequence will help solve this and many other issues in tomato production and quality,” reported
The Press Association. He added: “Now we can start asking a lot more interesting questions about fruit biology, disease resistance, root development, and nutritional qualities.”
Doubtlessly though, pulling the curtain on the tomato genome will not discourage the utilization of some 150 tons of the
Solanum lycopersicum in Spain’s famed La Tomantina. The annual event held on the last Wednesday of every August since 1945, in Buñol, near Valencia, features a food fight with tomatoes grown especially for the occasion.
“It is difficult to think to anything but pleasant thoughts while eating a homegrown tomato,” wrote Lewis Grizzard, columnist,
Atlanta Constitution-Journal, quoted by Rebecca Rupp (2011). Well, yes, but what about pronunciation?
“You like tomato and I like to-mah-to/Potato, po-tah-to, tomato, to-mah-to/Let's call the whole thing off!” So goes the Ira Gershwin song for the classic Fred Astaire/Ginger Rogers flick
Shall We Dance (1937). At the risk of offending all Anglophobes, to-mah-to is the original pronunciation, derived not from the dreaded Brits but much earlier, from tomatl in the Aztec language of Nahuatl, still spoken by 1.4 million people in Mexico.
