Author: Cara Giaimo / Source: Atlas Obscura
The Galapagos archipelago is famous for its diversity of creatures. The “little world within itself,” as Charles Darwin once put it, is home to everything from giant tortoises to pale pink iguanas.
As new research reveals, even the humble tomatoes are cool.
According to a paper in the plant breeding journal Euphytica, one species of wild Galapagos tomato, Solanum galapagense, shows resistance to a broad swath of common insects, from whiteflies to certain aphids and caterpillars.Bugs make life hard for plants. They nibble on leaves, sip sap from stems, and burrow through the skins of vegetables and fruits. They also spread viruses, which are often more devastating than the injuries themselves. Over millennia, many plant species have evolved pest resistance mechanisms, from defensive proteins (called metabolites) that fight pathogens to waxy coatings that are hard for mandibles to pierce.
Farmers use a number of strategies to further protect their crops. But some of these, like pesticides, come with their own problems. There’s yet another approach: finding wild plant species that have developed natural resistance methods, and breeding them with more conventional varieties. The idea is to come out with a kind of ultrafruit or superveggie that is bug-resistant, tasty, and…
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