Have you ever wondered why store-bought tomatoes just don't taste as good as the homegrown varieties? So have scientists — so they launched an extensive study that suggests the answer to the mediocrity lies in the fruits' DNA.
Modern tomatoes that are sold in most supermarkets have "narrow genetic diversity" compared to heirloom varieties, according to research published in Nature Genetics on Monday. In order to determine the true potential for tomatoes, scientists mapped out the genes of 725 varieties of tomato and assembled them into what's called a pan-genome — "a genome that captures the genetic information of all the varieties," explained Discover Magazine. From that pan-genome, the researchers determined that the average supermarket tomato — dubbed the Heinz 1706 — is missing almost 5,000 genes that other varieties of tomato have.
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