Consumer-Assisted Selection: Making New Plants that Look, Smell and Taste Better

Consumer-Assisted Selection: Making New Plants That Look, Smell & Taste Better

Kevin M. FoltaProfessor and Chair, Horticultural Sciences Department

University of Florida

Production Technologies• Supply chain managements shapes breeding targets

• Production• Shipping & handling• Packaging & processing• Point of purchase

Where are we now?• Our flowers, fruits and vegetables have

changed a lot

– PRODUCTION has changed– Product ALWAYS available– Product is NOT always good– Food products are diverse– Food is inexpensive

• We have a serious obesity problem– We are not vitamin deficient…

Key Words for US HorticultureHEALTHYSAFETYSUSTAINABLE/LOCALCONSUMER PREFERENCEVALUE ADDED

What do consumers experience?

SightTouchSmell

SightTouchSmell

Taste - memory

What do breeders experience?

Who are the consumers?

Who are the breeders?

A SERIOUS Disconnect

• Most flowers, fruits and vegetables are bought by women and they influence the purchasing decisions on much of the rest

• Most plant breeders and many industry decision makers are men

A BIG Question

• How do we find out what consumers want?– Most people really don’t know…– It is very hard to measure emotion– It is even harder to measure how much more

people will pay if stimulated

Another BIG Question

• How do we decide goals for new crop development?– Usually based on yield characters (retrospect)– Easy to measure and predict– It is difficult to measure the pleasure and

value of flavor and fragrance

Dr. Dave Clark – PIC DirectorA breeder rethinking priorities!

UF/IFAS-PIC

BASIC ScienceInputs

APPLIED ScienceOutputs

Sensory Analysis

Plant Genetics

Plant Production

Food Science

PostharvestShipping & Handling

New Product Development

Business & Marketing

New Variety Development

Institutional & CorporatePartnerships

Plant Supply Chain

Some VIPs

Appealing to Consumers’ Senses• Psychophysics – QUANTIFIES THE RELATIONSHIP

between physical stimuli and the sensations and perceptions they effect (behavior & emotions)

Like

Buy

Appealing to Consumers’ Senses

• Physical stimuli in plants – controlled by environment and genetic traits that are measured empirically– Sight: pigments (anthocyanins, carotenoids etc.)– Taste & Smell: sugars, acids, volatiles– Feel: physical features (trichomes, cuticles etc.)

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Physical fruit attributes C1 Fruit is roundC2 A golden-orange colored fruitC3 Fruit is juicyC4 Fruit has pinkish colored fleshC5 Fruit is firmC6 Plant yields a round, slightly ribbed fruitC7 Fruit has a plum-shapeC8 Produces striped fruitC9 Fruit has a deep red color

5 Inch Garden Starter Tomato Plant IdeaMap® study – Colquhoun & Moskowitz

Fruit Flavor A1 Plant produces a sweet fruitA2 Fruit has a full balanced flavorA3 A tart/acidic fruitA4 Fruit has a smoky sweetnessA5 Fruit is sweet with fruity complexityA6 Plant has fruit with a classic tomato flavorA7 Deep sweet fruit with a hint of tartnessA8 Mild sweet flavored fruitA9 Fruit has a tropical flavor

Physical plant attributes B1 Plant grows short and bushyB2 Plant bears for an extended periodB3 Produces many fruitB4 Potato-leaved foliageB5 Short harvest seasonB6 Bears fruit early in the seasonB7 Heat tolerant plantB8 Disease resistant plantB9 Plant grows tall and needs staking

Plant Branding D1 "Garden Gem"D2 "Big Boy"D3 "Brandywine"D4 "Sun Gold"D5 "Suwannee"D6 "Mortgage Lifter"D7 "Better Boy"D8 "Garden Treasure"D9 "Garden Charm"

Tomato Topline

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Coded Elements

Nor

mal

ized

Sca

le

sweetclassic flavor

many fruit

deep redearly

‘Garden Gem’

So what do people want in a garden tomato?• 300+ US consumers1. Sweet, classic tomato flavor – sensory 2. Prolific fruiting – psychological (gratification)3. Early season fruiting – psychological (gratification)4. Has deep red color – sensory 5. Name it ‘Garden Gem’• All of these traits are controlled genetically

Harry’s tomato experiment – The recipe for a great tasting tomato

Tieman, Bliss, McIntyre, Blandon-Ubeda, Bies, Osabasi, Rodiguez, van her Knaap, Taylor, Goulet, Mageroy, Snyder, Colquhoun, Moskowitz,

Clark, Sims, Bartoshuk & Klee (2012). Current Biology, 22, 1-5.

Harry Klee

Charlie Sims & Linda Bartoshuk

Tomato Flavor Tests• 79 heirloom tomato varieties tested• 68 tomato flavor constituents measured in each variety

– Sugars, acids, volatiles• 170 subjects (not all subjects tasted all varieties)

– Taste (e.g., sweet, salty, sour, bitter, umami)– Flavor – Palatability

• Developed and validated statisticalmodels to explain the chemistry of liking

• Some volatiles correlated positively.• Some correlated negatively.• Some did not seem to matter.• “Recipe” for a better tomato:

– Pick the appropriate sugar level– Increase volatiles with positive correlations– Decrease volatiles with negative correlations

A surprising discovery in the tomato data:

Multiple regression shows that the volatiles in tomatoes make a significant contribution to sweetness independent of sugar.

Sweetness is much more than sugar in tomato

Sweetness is much more than sugar in strawberry too…

A new source of sweetness?

• Can we add the volatiles that induce sweet in citrus (and potentially other fruit) products to make them sweeter with less sugar?

chromosome number

corr

elati

on o

f SN

P to

trai

tCitric acid

Guiacol

Genome Wide Association Study of 160 tomato genomes

‘Garden Gem’1. Sweet classic tomato flavor2. Prolific fruiting 3. Early season fruiting 4. NEEDS deep red color – have

markers for crimson gene5. Versatile use

www.gardengemtomato.com($20 donation = seeds from 2 new varieties)

Consumer-assisted Selection

• A great tasting “commercial” tomato is still a challenge. But…• We have defined the target• We have identified most of the key genes • We have started moving them into elite germplasm • There are SNP associations with every compound that consumers find

desirable/undesirable

• It is now just a matter of putting the biochemical and genetic recipe together

• This integrated approach is applicable to any horticultural crop

‘Indigo Crisp’ Blueberry1. Large sweet berries2. Prolific early season fruiting 3. Berries POP when bitten 4. New uses for processing – crisp

texture in pasteurized yogurt

‘Sweet Sensation’ Strawberry1. Large sweet berries2. Prolific early season fruiting3. Excellent sugar/acid ratio 4. Lots of sweet volatiles5. First named strawberry in the US

Pre- / Post-harvest light treatments to maximize flavor, nutrition, and shelf life.

Thomas Colquhoun, Sofia Carvalho, Michael Schwieterman

What’s Next?

• Outcomes• If we make plants people like more…

– And if we grow them well…– And package and ship them properly…– And put them in the market properly…

• Will they buy more of them?• Will they eat more of them?• Will they be healthier?• How can this benefit the Florida/USA

farmer?

Opportunities - colleagues

• Dr. Julie Mennella – Monell Institute (Penn) sensory

• Dr. Lisa Feldman-Barrett – Northeastern University (Boston) – fMRI

• Can we assist with your research questions?

Opportunities• Coca-Cola Company• WalMart• Green Mountain/Keurig• Costa Plants• JR Simplot Co• NSF• NIFA• NIH• FDACS• Florida Tomato Committee• UF/IFAS & UFRF seed funds

More Information

http://hort.ifas.ufl.edu/pic/

kfolta@ufl.edu@kevinfoltawww.arabidopsisthaliana.com

www.talkingbiotechpodcast.com