For roughly 10,000 years, farming communities have improved their crops by saving seeds from plants with the best flavor, size, and toughness. This slow and careful process shaped nearly every fruit and vegetable found in grocery stores today. Most modern crops are the result of centuries or even millennia of selective breeding.
Researchers at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL) believe they have discovered a much quicker way to guide crop development. Using the gene-editing tool CRISPR, plant biologists focused on goldenberry, a small fruit related to tomatoes. Their approach could make the plant easier to grow and manage, opening the door to large-scale farming in the U.S. and around the world. The same strategy could also speed the development of crops that can better withstand disease, pests, and drought.
"By using CRISPR, you open up paths to new and more resilient food options," said Blaine Fitzgerald, the greenhouse technician in CSHL's Zachary Lippman lab. "In an era of climate change and increasing population size, bringing innovation to agricultural production is going to be a huge path forward."
Why Goldenberries Are Hard to Farm
The Lippman lab focuses on plants in the nightshade family, which includes staple crops like tomatoes, eggplants, and potatoes, along with lesser-known species such as goldenberries. Goldenberries are mostly grown in South America and are becoming more popular because of their nutrition and their balance of sweet and tart flavors. Some shoppers may already recognize them from supermarket shelves.
Despite their appeal, goldenberries remain difficult to cultivate on a large scale. Farmers still rely on plants that are "not really domesticated," said Miguel Santo Domingo Martinez, a postdoctoral researcher in the Lippman lab who led the study.
"These massive, sprawling plants in an agricultural setting are cumbersome for harvest," Fitzgerald explained.
Shrinking the Plant Without Losing the Flavor
Earlier work from the Lippman lab used CRISPR to modify tomatoes and another tomato relative called groundcherry, producing plants that were smaller and easier to grow in urban environments. Using that experience, the team edited similar genes in goldenberries. The modified plants were about 35% shorter, which made them easier to maintain and allowed farmers to plant them more densely.
The researchers then focused on taste. To identify the best fruit, they sampled goldenberries directly from the field. Fitzgerald described the process as eating "hundreds of them, walking a field, and trying fruit off every plant in the row."
New Varieties and What Comes Next
After several generations of breeding, the team developed two promising goldenberry lines that combined compact growth with strong flavor. Although the fruits were slightly smaller, the researchers see room for improvement using the same gene-editing tools.
"We can try to target fruit size or disease resistance," Santo Domingo said. "We can use these modern tools to domesticate undomesticated crops."
The next step is regulatory approval, which would allow growers to access seeds and begin producing the newly developed goldenberry varieties on a wider scale.
