Tag: Hybrid vegetables

Grape tomatoes burst onto the American produce scene in the late 1990s, where they quickly gained immense popularity. Their small, oblong shape and robust texture set them apart from other varieties, making them a pantry staple for salads, snacks, and cooking.

Developed by Japanese breeders in 1993, the long-stemmed vegetable known as broccolini is actually a hybrid of standard broccoli and Chinese kale. This initial creation is the basis for the confusion: are broccolini and Tenderstem broccoli the same product, or is there a distinction to be made between these seemingly identical vegetables?

First developed by the Sakata Seed Company in Japan in 1993, broccolini is a natural hybrid created through conventional cross-pollination, not genetic modification. This fact often surprises those who assume any 'new' vegetable is a result of genetic engineering.

Though often mistaken for a product of modern genetic engineering, broccoli is actually a man-made vegetable, the result of centuries of selective breeding from wild cabbage. This process, dating back thousands of years to ancient Roman farmers, showcases agricultural innovation long before modern genetic modification (GMO) techniques existed.