Monsanto may be most well-known today for genetically engineering crops, especially its Roundup Ready line of corn and soybeans that can tolerate being sprayed by its Roundup herbicide, but people may be surprised to know that they have been doing conventional cross-breeding of vegetables and fruit to get the best flavor, texture and nutritional benefits in a form that most consumers wouldn't mind paying for. They look for varieties of crops around the world that may be a little sweeter, or firmer, or have more antioxidants, and breed them with our traditionally-grown varieties here in the U.S.
For example: "The lettuce is sweeter and crunchier than romaine and has the stay-fresh quality of iceberg. The peppers come in miniature, single-serving sizes to reduce leftovers. The broccoli has three times the usual amount of glucoraphanin, a compound that helps boost antioxidant levels . . . Frescada lettuce, BellaFina peppers, and Beneforté broccoli—cheery brand names trademarked to an all-but-anonymous Monsanto subsidiary called Seminis—are rolling out at supermarkets across the US."
Although there is no genetic engineering involved, these new crops are produced by crossbreeding (a technique we have been using for thousands of years) with some help from new technology. After breeding two individual plants together, they are able to use samples of the hybrid offspring to analyze their genome to help predict which traits of the hybrid would be passed on with future breeding and skip a lot of the trial-and-error that traditional crossbreeding goes through to find new, desired traits that will be passed on. This means in just a few years, Monsanto can have new seeds for new varieties of fruits and veggies that they sell to farmers, which then sell their produce in supermarkets.
Monsanto is still requiring contracts by the growers of these cross-bred plants saying they will not replant their seeds.
http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2014/01/new-monsanto-vegetables/
For example: "The lettuce is sweeter and crunchier than romaine and has the stay-fresh quality of iceberg. The peppers come in miniature, single-serving sizes to reduce leftovers. The broccoli has three times the usual amount of glucoraphanin, a compound that helps boost antioxidant levels . . . Frescada lettuce, BellaFina peppers, and Beneforté broccoli—cheery brand names trademarked to an all-but-anonymous Monsanto subsidiary called Seminis—are rolling out at supermarkets across the US."
Although there is no genetic engineering involved, these new crops are produced by crossbreeding (a technique we have been using for thousands of years) with some help from new technology. After breeding two individual plants together, they are able to use samples of the hybrid offspring to analyze their genome to help predict which traits of the hybrid would be passed on with future breeding and skip a lot of the trial-and-error that traditional crossbreeding goes through to find new, desired traits that will be passed on. This means in just a few years, Monsanto can have new seeds for new varieties of fruits and veggies that they sell to farmers, which then sell their produce in supermarkets.
Monsanto is still requiring contracts by the growers of these cross-bred plants saying they will not replant their seeds.
http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2014/01/new-monsanto-vegetables/