Fruit and vegetable quality in 21st century--The influence of Japan(Commemorative Lecture) (Symposium and Celebration Ceremony in Commemoration of the 75th Anniversary of Japanese Society for Horticultural Science) -- (園芸学会創立75周年記念式典・講演記事)
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概要
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Horticulture is probably the most quality conscious of all the agricultural industries. For this reason much of our molecular biology has been directed towards changing the quality of fruits and vegetables rather than increasing the yield of existing varieties. Current genetic engineering and conventional breeding programs aim to alter many features of fruits and vegetables including size, flavour, colour, texture, keeping quality and fibre, sugar and acid contents. A problem with this research is the setting of appropriate goals as the perception of quality differs between the continents and even between countries. However innovations developed in one country commonly spread to other countries as markets have an almost insatiable appetite for new products. Japan has played an important role in developing fruits with altered characteristics. The list includes seedless, easy peel satsuma mandarins, and high sugar content 'Fuji' type apples, large (seeded) table grapes such as 'Kyoho' and 'Red Globe' (bred in the USA but made popular in Japan), non-astringent persimmons and Asian (Japanese) pears. An important contribution from Japan has been the requirement for all fruits and vegetables to be of the highest possible quality and to be low or free of organic residues. What then will be the nature of our fruits and vegetables 10, 20 and 50 years from now? There will be obvious changes to both their appearance and taste, but also the content and type of fibre, vitamins and other biologically active compounds in both vegetables and fruits will be altered to improve nutritive value and to confer health advantages. A problem with this research is the lack of "hard data" from human nutritionists concerning the constituents in food that are "good" for us. Currently we can easily alter the levels of existing constituents and introduce genes that make entirely new compounds but it is not at all clear what we should aim to have in our diets. It is clear that in the future both fruits and vegetables will contain materials that will improve their resistance to pests and diseases. Introduced genes will include those that code for bacterial proteins that are toxic to insects and for the production of chitinases and compounds such as resveratrol that improve resistance to fungal diseases. Many crops will contain anti-sense transcripts to switch off genes coding for polyphenol oxidase and poly-galacturonidase enzymes and ethylene production to reduce both browning and softening reactions and to improve post-harvest shelf life. Seedlessness will be extended to many fruits as a range of genes are available which interrupt different stages of pollen and seed formation. Male sterility will be extended to a range of crops and combined with parthenocarpy. Self fertility will be built into some of those species that currently require cross-pollination. However consumers will have the final say as they may not like to eat apples and pears without cores and stone fruits without stones! Perhaps we will relish seedless kiwi fruit with smooth skins by giving them a new name!
- 園芸学会の論文
- 1998-11-15