“On the agronomical trip to market, strawberries have lost some of their flavor,” says Wired, noting the adjustments made over the decades to produce a bright-colored, slick-skinned, large-sized berry that is easy to pick and stays in condition. “Supermarket berries are bred for size, color, shelf-life, and disease-resistance. But a new breed of … er … breeders wants to bring glory back to the strawberry, amping up classical breeding techniques with modern genetics,” and tools such as DNA sequencing.
Flavor is derived from many components – texture, sugar content, types of sugar, aromatics, acids and fragance. DNA sequencing helps breeders identify the genes behind desirable traits. UC-Davis and U-Florida are the leading breeders of strawberries, the fifth-most-popular fruit in the country. The lead researchers at the two universities eschew genetic engineering. “Besides the complications in marketing anything with a whiff of genetic engineering, flavor is too complicated to engineer in cut-and-paste fashion,” says Wired.