This page has been moved due to the launch of our improved Web site. Please update your bookmarks and references. This page will automatically go there in 7 seconds. Thank you for your patience and we apologize for any inconvenience. Changing the levels of a key hormone in tomatoes could lead to fruit that tastes better and lasts longer, Agricultural Research Service scientists report.
Research shows such a tomato to be only a few years away.
ARS plant physiologist Jerry D. Cohen, a member of the American Society of Plant Physiologists, and colleagues have genetically altered the levels of auxin, a hormone which causes a tomato to grow and ripen. It's the best known and probably the most important of the five major plant hormones. Scientists have been studying auxin for more than 120 years. They've been able to change auxin levels, but the changes were expressed throughout the plant, not just in the fruit. At the ARS Horticultural Crops Quality Laboratory in Beltsville, Md., Cohen and colleagues inserted a backwards copy of iaglu a gene from corn into a tomato to turn this gene off.