Red grapefruits were originally created by planting yellow grapefruit near a radioactive source with the express purpose of creating mutations in the plant.
Radioactivity and chemical mutagens are normal methods of creating new traits in crops. That’s how new varieties of fruits, grains etc. are often created. Nobody knows what exactly it does on the genomic level, usually. And then people complain about modifying a specific gene by targetted tools…
Absolutely, there are thousands of cultivars that were created via mutagenesis (and all of them qualify for organic food, because this isn’t GMO for some reason)
But quite few followed the old “chuck some cobalt in a circle of crops and see what happens” method they used for grapefruit.
Red grapefruits were originally created by planting yellow grapefruit near a radioactive source with the express purpose of creating mutations in the plant.
Commies! They’re in your fruits!
Commies and fruits have been bedfellows for a long time.
From what I read, red grapefruit like Ruby Red existed naturally, but the atomic mutations only made them more red / not fade over time.
Radioactivity and chemical mutagens are normal methods of creating new traits in crops. That’s how new varieties of fruits, grains etc. are often created. Nobody knows what exactly it does on the genomic level, usually. And then people complain about modifying a specific gene by targetted tools…
Absolutely, there are thousands of cultivars that were created via mutagenesis (and all of them qualify for organic food, because this isn’t GMO for some reason)
But quite few followed the old “chuck some cobalt in a circle of crops and see what happens” method they used for grapefruit.
So that’s where Oxygen Not Included got the idea from.