A new tomato ideal for urban gardens and even outer space
Farmers could soon be growing tomatoes in bunches like grapes in a storage unit, on the roof of a skyscraper or even in space. If a series of new genetically modified crops prove as successful as the first batch.
The primary goal of this new research is to design a greater variety of crops that can be grown in urban environments or other locations that are unsuitable for plant growth, said Zach Lippman, a professor at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory and MHI researcher who heads the laboratory that designed the "urban agriculture tomatoes.
These new genetically engineered tomato plants are nothing like the long vines you might find in a garden or agricultural field. The most remarkable feature is their compact, clustered fruit. They look like a bouquet whose roses have been replaced by ripe cherry tomatoes. They ripen just as quickly, producing ripe fruit that is ready to be harvested in less than 40 days. And you can eat them.
"They're big in shape and small in size, they taste good, but of course, it all depends on personal preference," Lippman said.
And most importantly, they're environmentally friendly.
"It shows how we can produce crops in a new way, without having to tear up so much land or add excess fertilizer that flows into rivers and streams," Lippman said. "This is a complementary approach to help feed people, locally and with a reduced carbon footprint."
This is good news for everyone concerned about climate change. Earlier this year, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) warned that more than 500 million people live on land already degraded by deforestation, climate change and over-exploitation of viable agricultural land. By shifting some of the burden of global cultivation to urban and other areas, it is hoped that the desperate mismanagement of land will slow down.
Urban farming systems often require compact plants that can be nested or stacked in tight spaces, as in multi-storey farming in warehouses or converted storage containers. To compensate for crop yields limited by the limited space, urban farms can operate year-round under controlled climatic conditions. For this reason, it is advantageous to use plants that can be grown and harvested quickly. More crops per year can produce more food, even if the space used is very limited.
Dr. Lippman and his colleagues created the new tomatoes by fine-tuning two genes that control the plant's transition to reproductive growth and size, the SELF-COMPRESSION (SP) and SP5G genes, which caused the plant to stop growing earlier and to flower and fruit earlier. But Lippman's lab knew that he could only modify the SP sibling genes to a certain extent before trading off flavour or yield for even smaller plants.
"When you play with the maturation of the plant, you're playing with the whole system, and that system includes the sugars, where they're made, who the leaves are, and how they're distributed, who's at the fruit," Lippman said.
Looking for a third player, Lippman's team recently discovered the SIER gene, which controls stem length. Muting SIER with the CRISPR gene editing tool and combining it with mutations in the other two flowering genes created shorter stems and extremely compact plants.
Lippman is refining this technique, published in recent issues of Nature Biotechnology, and hopes others will be inspired to try it on other fruit crops such as kiwi. By making crops and harvests shorter, Lippman believes agriculture can reach new heights.
"I can tell you that NASA scientists have expressed some interest in our new tomatoes," he said.
Although the first spacecraft to Mars probably won't have its own farm, astronauts will still be able to test their green thumbs with urbanized tomatoes destined for space.
