GMO tomatoes have been approved for home gardeners - Beware

[MissS]

The USDA has given green light to home growers purchasing Norfolk Plant Science’s nutritionally enhanced high-anthocyanin purple tomato seeds from Spring 2023.

I would be very careful growing these. I would not want them crossing with my heirloom varieties. I will also be suspicious of any new very dark tomatoes.

https://www.newfoodmagazine.com/news/16 ... smC5FumvuU

[maxjohnson]

Spring 2023? We're close to 2024, it is 'coming soon' though.

Found a video of someone visiting their greenhouse and showing the inside cross section of the fruit.
Kinda meh to me, I mean there are already a lot of antho cherry out there. At least its taking genes from another plant, not something like a frog or fish.


Kind of weird that Baker Creek coming out with their own purple flesh tomato soon.

[slugworth]

[worth1]

On day everything will be GMO.
And it might be against the law to grow anything else but GMO.

[bower]

The idea that antho is nutritionally enhancing the tomato is bollocks. Unless your diet is 100% tomatoes, why would you want them to provide that antho group of substances we are getting in other foods? Instead of the carotenoids which they naturally produce and are also important for our health? It makes no sense to me whatsoever.
The purple fruit is just a novelty.

@worth1 I don't agree with your bleak outlook on gmo food future, LOL. There's a reason we have seed saving community, and our network is widely scattered therefore very resilient, I can't imagine that any government would find it possible (or desirable) to stamp out heirlooms and seed saving.

[worth1]

The idea that antho is nutritionally enhancing the tomato is bollocks. Unless your diet is 100% tomatoes, why would you want them to provide that antho group of substances we are getting in other foods? Instead of the carotenoids which they naturally produce and are also important for our health? It makes no sense to me whatsoever.
The purple fruit is just a novelty.

@worth1 I don't agree with your bleak outlook on gmo food future, LOL. There's a reason we have seed saving community, and our network is widely scattered therefore very resilient, I can't imagine that any government would find it possible (or desirable) to stamp out heirlooms and seed saving.

We'll talk about it 500 years from now and see what's going on.
It's hardly been 100 years since we started producing fertilizer.

[ddsack]

Not sure why they bother with tomatoes in a lab, other than to see if it can be done. None of the hybrids coming out of the university projects or large companies (with a very few exceptions like SunGold F1) can compete for taste with op's and heirlooms already out there. I do realize labs are primarily interested in providing disease resistance, thick skins and long keeping qualities for harvesting and shipping for commercial producers. Hey, maybe if they stuck in some long keeping apple genes in a tomato it might even improve the bland hybrid flavor!

It's relatively easy for anyone to select naturally for good tasting crosses, just takes a little time for grow out selection. So far, the op tomatoes produced by amateur breeders in the last 30 years totally blow away the thick skinned commercial hybrids in terms of flavor and variety. We've already been ahead of the curve in terms of all colors, GWR, stripes, antho. I see more colorful F1's appearing in catalog's like Johnny's every year. I rarely see anything but red in our grocery stores though, except the cherry mixes. I wonder if there will ever be a large enough grower's market for the other colors, since the general public still clings to red tomatoes.

[slugworth]

Neighbors avoid the blues when I offer them during the summer.
A lot of people avoid oddball stuff,like a witch trying to give you an apple.Same effect.

[Tormahto]

The idea that antho is nutritionally enhancing the tomato is bollocks. Unless your diet is 100% tomatoes, why would you want them to provide that antho group of substances we are getting in other foods? Instead of the carotenoids which they naturally produce and are also important for our health? It makes no sense to me whatsoever.
The purple fruit is just a novelty.

@worth1 I don't agree with your bleak outlook on gmo food future, LOL. There's a reason we have seed saving community, and our network is widely scattered therefore very resilient, I can't imagine that any government would find it possible (or desirable) to stamp out heirlooms and seed saving.

I think that Iraq had a new Constitution written that prohibited seed saving.

[Cole_Robbie]

I would guess it would be released as an F1 hybrid. If it's any good, tomato lovers will save seeds and try to stabilize it. There's probably a gene mod to turn off seed viability too, but not worth the effort because there are so few seed savers.

[MissS]

The idea that antho is nutritionally enhancing the tomato is bollocks. Unless your diet is 100% tomatoes, why would you want them to provide that antho group of substances we are getting in other foods? Instead of the carotenoids which they naturally produce and are also important for our health? It makes no sense to me whatsoever.
The purple fruit is just a novelty.

@worth1 I don't agree with your bleak outlook on gmo food future, LOL. There's a reason we have seed saving community, and our network is widely scattered therefore very resilient, I can't imagine that any government would find it possible (or desirable) to stamp out heirlooms and seed saving.

I think that Iraq had a new Constitution written that prohibited seed saving.

Sadly, it is the US creating these sanctions.
https://ejatlas.org/conflict/order-81s- ... griculture
https://grain.org/article/entries/150-i ... st-farmers

[worth1]

We as a group of seed savers and growers think we are large when in fact we aren't larg at all considering how many people are on earth and in the US.
Probably way less than 1 % of the total population.
I'm a long distance shooter and that percentage is nothing but it seems large if you are in a group of like minded people.
Our population won't blink an eye at voting for some bill that looks and is good but not realizing that they have other laws attached to said bills we no nothing about.
Some times we don't even get a choice or a chance to even vote.

[Setec Astronomy]

I can't imagine that any government would find it possible (or desirable) to stamp out heirlooms and seed saving.

At first blush, my reading of the Iraqi seed order that Miss S linked, would seem to contradict what you are saying, however a closer reading reaveals (to me, anyway) that the order applies to patented varieties, or those under the PVPA or similar https://datcp.wi.gov/Documents/BrownBagSeed.pdf

So my interpretation, based on my limited study, is that Order 81 in Iraq did not prohibit seed saving, it prohibited seed saving of patented and otherwise IP-protected varieties.

EDIT Presumably these type of regulations already apply and have applied here in the US for a long, long time, and they haven't stopped any of us from saving seeds, so this part of the topic seems a bit alarmist to me.

[bower]

@worth1 it is not so much the size of our seed saving community, as the dispersed nature of the beast, which makes us less likely to be controlled. The seeds are everywhere, all over the place. The seed saving movement is alive and well in every part of North America, Australia, UK, also in Europe, and in Eastern Europe/ Russia it never stopped being a thing, most of their CV's are OP's and saving is the obvious choice as well as traditional in that society... These are the ones I know about that are organized, and of course there is a lot of world which I don't have much of a window on.
Twenty years ago, organic farming was a very small 'niche market' and some people didn't believe it would ever be anything else. But look how much changed. The organic sector has really grown, demand likely exceeds current production, and much of the scientific work about carbon capture in farmland is pointing to organic methods as a potentially positive way to help balance emissions. So it looks to me that there will be more of it in future, and in general that's another core of seed savers.
OSSI is also growing by leaps and bounds. Really a lot of seed offerings are now pledged and more coming all the time.
So there are multiple strands of positive energy for saveable seed.

I expect the restrictions in Iraq are exactly the same as the US, where patents have been applied to GMOs and the "owned" genes are not to be saved by anyone. However it is getting worse in the US, with patents being issued for non-GMO seeds on the basis of supposedly novel traits. That is not legal in Canada (yet) but there may be some in Europe too. Bottom line, the big ag seed producers will do all they can to "own" every right to seeds, but because of that, the determination to stop it happening is equally strong.

One thing that concerns me are the recent restrictions on seed sharing across borders due to fear of diseases, and the soaring cost of postage across borders as well. The posties here are out of their minds about it... I never heard of such an interest in seeds. I hope it becomes old news and fades away...

[worth1]

Bang bang bang Saatgutpolizei.

[Moth1992]

Why the concern? Could be interesting to see what varieties can come out of crossing it. Sure its a novelty but many tomatoes are bred because they are novelties.

[bower]

Why the concern? Could be interesting to see what varieties can come out of crossing it. Sure its a novelty but many tomatoes are bred because they are novelties.

IDK but most GMO's are patented. That means breeding with it is prohibited, unless you want to contribute all the proceeds of your effort and its control, to the patent holder.
This trait would certainly be conspicuous enough to prove the origin, even if it was an unintentional bee cross.

[Whwoz]

Why the concern? Could be interesting to see what varieties can come out of crossing it. Sure its a novelty but many tomatoes are bred because they are novelties.

IDK but most GMO's are patented. That means breeding with it is prohibited, unless you want to contribute all the proceeds of your effort and its control, to the patent holder.
This trait would certainly be conspicuous enough to prove the origin, even if it was an unintentional bee cross.

Most of the concern with GMO's arises from the source of the inserted genes being from non-food plants where people do not know what effects those genes will have on their health

Baker Creek have released an equivalent that is not GMO by all accounts, so maybe not so clear cut.

[Cole_Robbie]

I've grown gmo sweet corn that requires the signing of a "stewardship agreement" that contains a lot of fun concessions like "in the event Franken Corn makes unexpected mutations, we reserve the right to come camp out on your farm to fight back."

And then after putting terms like that in the contract they show you, at the end it says basically "the real contract to which you are agreeing is on our web site and all of it may change whenever we feel like it."

[maxjohnson]

And it is now for sale to the US public, $20 for 10 seeds. With stipulation "No sales of fruit, seeds or plants are permitted in this agreement, including any derived varieties."