As if cauliflower weren’t...scrumptious enough

In an exciting vegetable crop breakthrough, researchers have unearthed the genetic secret behind the bright orange cauliflower. Yes, it’s a gene called “Orange.” By deftly manipulating “Orange,” the Cornell scientists hope to soon offer us a cornucopia of more-nutritious orange foods: potatoes, maize, wheat, more.

The gene enables the cauliflower to build up higher stores of beta-carotene, the precursor to vitamin A that gives carrots their distinctive hue. (Scientists have already figured out a way to engineer rice to be rich in beta-carotene, but that method’s more cumbersome, involving several genes, and doesn’t work in a lot of plants.) The original mutant orange cauliflower was discovered three decades ago in a farmer’s field, according to a newsrelease describing the finding, which was reported in the journal Plant Cell (which won’t let you read all about it unless you pay, bah, humbug).

If you want to read more about orange cauliflowers, go to

https://www.news.cornell.edu/stories/June07/orangeCauliflower.kr.html.

If you want to read about the exciting, original discovery of the orange cauliflower, go here:

https://www.nysaes.cornell.edu/pubs/press/2004/040412caulif.html.

If you don’t want to read about orange cauliflowers at all but wouldn’t mind taking a look at one, go here:

https://www.news.cornell.edu/stories/June07/orangeCauliflower.jpg.

— Rosie Mestel