Potato sales are falling in the UK. With busier lives, shoppers pick pasta and rice instead, because they cook faster.
Scientists want to help. Geneticists from the agritech companies B-hive Innovations and Branston, working with the James Hutton Institute in Scotland, plan to use CRISPR “molecular scissors” to edit potato DNA, shorten cooking time and get the qualities shoppers want. That means changing the genes that control how quickly the cells soften.
Getting the same changes through conventional breeding would take many years. Dr. Rob Hancock, a research scientist at the James Hutton Institute, explains that gene editing and other precision breeding technologies open up an unprecedented chance to improve potatoes quickly and keep up with changing consumer preferences.
The experiment will use Maris Piper, a popular variety for boiling, frying and potato chips. The goal is a near-perfect potato: good-looking, long-keeping, resistant to diseases and pests, and quick to cook.
If all goes to plan, businesses such as potato chip makers will be the first to try the gene-edited potatoes. Only after that would the “super potato” reach stores.
