University of Illinois plant biology professor Ray Ming and his agricultural research colleagues from the Hawaii Agriculture Research Center, Texas A&M University, Miami University and the USDA will collaborate on a $3.1 million grant from the National Science Foundation. The grant will fund basic research on papaya sex chromosomes and will lead to the development of a papaya that produces only hermaphrodite offspring, an advance that will enhance papaya health while radically cutting papaya growers’ production costs and their use of fertilizers and water.
Papayas have not one but three sexes: male, female and hermaphrodite. The third produces consumer marketable fruit, but the male and females are mostly useless to farmers.
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Photo credit: University of Illinois/James Carr
Hydroponics Dictionary
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This is essentially genetic engineering, which I thought you were opposed to, but it’s nice to see a move away from hormone chemicals like STS and colloidal silver which may end up in the consumer food supply.
Publishing information without bias is impossible. It starts by the selection of what to publish and ends in the wording you use. For me horticultural sciences are always interesting, no matter if I hate the specific topic or not.