New peach varieties

I’m wasn’t making a claim about editing within a species being “GMO” or “not GMO”. Since you asked, I do think editing genes within a species using crispr qualifies it as GMO. and it is a spectrum. here are some common types in a sort of increasing order of, I dunno, unlikeliness to be on sale at whole foods:

  1. radiation induced random mutations (very common to speed up mutations. previously used by zaigers, for example). typically escapes the GMO label, and I think it should escape because it’s just speeding up what natural radiation does by a few million or billion times
  2. chemical induced random mutations (again, very common, and typically allowed without putting a GMO label on it)
    – here’s where I draw the line and this is the typical place the “GMO” line is put –
  3. editing genes within a species in a more or less exact way with something like crispr (what we’re talking about)
  4. inserting genes in a somewhat random way with agrobacterium, maybe from a separate species entirely
  5. inserting genes in a somewhat random way with something like a gene gun

I’m just telling you that #3 is currently being worked on to move it above the line by carving out some sort of special case

as to whether there will be resistance? yes of course. the entire industry is on edge about introducing anything and having backlash. there have only been a few fruit introductions that have been tried (although GMO penetration of cereal crops is pretty much over and done with in the US):

papaya ring spot GMO (seems to have been accepted and, by now, forgotten by the general public)

funny note about papayas… if you seek out a non-gmo papaya, it’s pretty likely that it can only be grown profitably because papayas in general have achieved something like “herd immunity” to ring spot thanks to most of them now being GMO. so avoiding GMO here is complicated

and the “arctic” non-browning apples. haven’t seen these for sale but it’s a good test case for precision in-species edits

lastly… with the availability of cheap full genome sequencing, there is a possible regulatory pathway for precise in-species edits being downgraded: you’d perform the edit, sequence the edited plant, then demonstrate that the resulting plant has fully natural-type genes of the sort that could have arisen from normal breeding, with exactly the edit you wanted to make and nothing else

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yes some other plants have transformation methods that work. I think that article lists a few. it may become a hobby-level project soon to do an edit of one of those other plants since you can already order custom crispr materials for very little money. you’d need to set up the whole protocol for tissue culture or whatever the known transformation method is

I just googled this and I haven’t read it but it’s about apple and pear. so you’d need to set up whatever lab stuff they list plus order crispr materials and you’d be off to the races

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I am curious has anyone used this technology to modify cherries either sweet or tart?

It looks like some work is being done on cherries.

https://www.researchgate.net/project/Sweet-cherry-genome-and-genetic-engineering

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I would pay a lot for a cherry immune to bacterial canker.

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Throw in <500 chill hours, they can shut up and take my money :slight_smile:

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I’m a bit surprised Marker Assisted Breeding isn’t being utilized more. Monsanto (before they merged with Bayer) was using it extensively in their Seminis vegetable seed lines. As I recall, the equipment was expensive (which is maybe why it hasn’t caught on more). The equipment could scan thousands of seeds very quickly to determine if the seeds had the right genetic material.

The method was completely non-gmo, since it relies on natural breeding of the plants, but Marker Assisted Breeding cuts out all the time and expense of growing the plants/trees to determine if the fruit/vegetable meets the desired traits. I thought it was a pretty clever innovation. It was hailed by both gmo and non-gmo advocates.

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Hi Paul,

Actually some of the big time breeders make quite a lot of money off new fruit patents. At one time I read Chris Floyd Zaiger’s breeding program brought in $2M annual revenue to his business.

He’s probably the most successful peach breeder, but I think Paul Friday (Flamin’ Fury) and the Bjorge’s (Stellar peach series) do pretty well.

But you’re right there are lots of patents filed for peaches which never really took off. Probably in a lot of cases, the money made off the patent probably didn’t even cover the costs to register the patent.

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2 million in revenue is not 2 million in profit. I would not be suprised if Zaiger had 2 million in expenses.

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That’s very true Paul. Plus I may have accidentally misstated the revenue of Zaiger’s Genetics. I looked on the web and they only show a little over $800K in revenue. I thought I read he did $2M in revenue at one time, but maybe not.

It would be interesting to know what the expenses of his operation are. I’m sure they were substantial.

Floyd Zaiger died last summer. I just saw that today. He was 94. I think he was a pretty successful peach breeder, but he worked really hard at it.

Here is an old article I posted once on the forum about his operation. At the time of this article, he had 446 patents issued for his varieties.

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it seems like a tough business, the nationwide market for peach trees is only a few million a year (forget where I saw this but I think 3 million is about right?) and the going rate is around $1/tree royalty, and not all of them will be patented. so every breeder in the country is fighting over only a few million a year

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I think the small market size is why much genetic research is focused on grain crops rather than fruits. With grain crops you sell seed to the same customers every year and the market is huge. With fruit trees you get a small royalty every 10-25 years depending on the tree species.

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