The pick of hybrid fruit and vegetables
Let's start with the Badger Flame beetroot. It is a beetroot of brilliant orange that a professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison bred to produce a sweet and mild variety his children would enjoy.
How about the EverMild onion? Agriculture giant Monsanto discovered that GM wasn’t as effective in producing new vegetables as a tried-and-tested method: crossbreeding (though enhanced for the 21st century by a technique called genetic marking). Among its inventions is the EverMild onion, bred for lower levels of the pyruvate that lend onions their pungency and tear-inducing qualities.
The oroblanco was introduced to the world in the 1980s after its development at the University of California Citrus Experiment Station. A cross between the grapefruit and a pomelo, it borrows from the latter to make a less bitter hybrid. Initially unsuccessful because it is green even when ripe, it has bounced back, partly due to success in popularising the similar Sweetie variety in Japan.
Theguardian.com goes on to report on scientists from the US and Israel that have experimented with breeding “black tomatoes” that are red on the inside and dark on the outside. Their exterior hue derives from high levels of anthocyanin, the pigment that lends blueberries, blackberries and chokeberries their colour. Black tomatoes are sold in the UK under the name Indigo Rose.
Apriums and pluots; these were developed in California in the 1980s by Floyd Zaiger. Apriums and pluots are hybrids, themselves descended from hybrids. Plums and apricots have been naturally cross-pollinating for centuries. The aprium and pluot were created by tinkering with proportions. The aprium is mostly apricot and part plum; the pluot the other way around.