Modified new fruit could be cherry on the cake

Breeding techniques have been used to advance changes in wild plant

Strawberries are so last summer – get ready for the groundcherry.

The little-known wild plant from Central and South America could be transformed into agriculture’s next big berry success after a spot of genetic tweaking, scientists claim.

Food producers have spent years searching for a new berry that will offer more choice to consumers bored of traditional strawberries, blueberries and blackberries.

The drought-tolerant and flavoursome groundcherry, Physalis pruinosa, could fit the bill, say researchers. But the marble-sized fruits need to be made larger and the plant improved for large-scale production.

Using breeding techniques to domesticate a wild plant can take anything from a decade to thousands of years. Scientists in the US short cut the process using the advanced gene-editing tool CRISPR/Cas9, that allows precise changes to be made to DNA.

They made the weedy shape of the groundcherry more compact, its fruits larger, and its flowers more prolific.

Plant scientist Dr Zachary Lippman, from Cold Spring Harbour Laboratory in New York, said: “I firmly believe that, with the right approach, the groundcherry could become a major berry crop.

“Some scientists might consider the idea a reach, but I think we’re now at a place where the technology allows us to reach.”

He described the flavour of the groundcherry as “tropical yet sour, sometimes with hints of vanilla”.

Groundcherries are grown on a small scale regionally as subsistence crops and occasionally show up in US farmers’ markets where they “sell like hotcakes”, said Dr Lippman.

The new research builds on the team’s previous work on tomatoes, which are distantly related to the groundcherry.

Picture: PA. The traditional strawberries with Champagne could be replaced by genetically tweaked groundcherries.