RE: [CH] question for a big brain
Mary & Riley (uGuys@ChileGarden.com)
Wed, 15 Aug 2001 23:41:45 -0700
> I was reading in Nature today that some scientists have found
> a way to
> genetically alter tomato plants so that they can now grow in
> salty soil,
They may have modified a plant to do that, but it was spin about there
not being salt resistant tomatoes already in production. Israel is a
big producer of salt resistant tomatoes.. Carolyn Male on the
TomatoMania list pointed this out.
Here's her response to the news announcement, not the Nature article.
Which I haven't read and presumably doesn't have the hype present in the
popular press.
Used without permission.
Date: Wed Aug 1, 2001 12:53 am
Subject: Re: Salt-Tolerant Tomato Represents Breakthrough
Double Phooey on this report. LOL I also saw it this AM and sat on my
chair muttering under my breath.
The reason it got coverage is because it's genetic engineering at
work.
And Aradopsis isn't a cabbage. It's in that family, kinda, but is
really a mustard that's used in almost all biology classes to
illustrate different mutations of plants. The kids do crosses with it
becasue it matures so rapidly, collect the seeds, resow them, etc.
One of the species of tomatoes, L cheesmanii, is naturally salt
tolerant. It also is not very edible. Hybridizers have been working
with it for a few years to ID the genes and put them in other plants,
but they were scooped many years ago.
The Israelis developed a salt tolerant tomato years ago. Seeds are
germintaed in sweet water and then transplanted and watered with
brackish water, which constitutes most of the underground water in
that country.
When grown on higher salt brackish water tomatoes develop a higher
sugar content.
The Israelis called the tomatoes grown this way Desert Sweet tomatoes
and for years has exported them to other countries for sale at
upscale places. The were exported on the vine and as you know,
everyone copied that techniqie of marketing tomatoes on the vine.
Of course there are different levels of salinity and I don['t know
what levels were achieved with any of the salt tolerant ones
mentioned above.
Side Note: A German author and I met up online and he wanted tomatoes
to be a major part of a novel he is writing about Africa, etc. in the
early 1800's. So I had fun researching that for him. We may make the
ship go to the Galapagos Islands where L cheesmanii grows naturally.
Carolyn
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