That's great news as they are such an advanced company. The technique though is far from new. Others have been doing this too. You don't have to wait for fruit when you know what the genetic markers mean. I read an article about growing hot peppers using this technique. I also like to grow hot peppers from seed. If I could I would grow 40 or 50 different varieties, but I'm limited to about 5. Same with tomatoes, although I grow at least a dozen every year.

The technology is amazing! But, the article only mentions vegetables, I don't know if they're using it for fruit breeding too.

Monsanto obviously recognizes the potential profits in the organic seeds market. This could just mean more of the same though: nasty tasting produce that looks beautiful and ships really well!

In terms of vegetables at least, the diversity of amazing varieties is already there, it just needs to be preserved before being lost. This technology would really be useful for fruit trees though, that take years to grow out and evaluate.

"This gives Monsanto a huge advantage in speeding up selective breeding, even though the crossing is done naturally."

Basically, a huge misinformation campaign is forcing them to do a ton of extra work to achieve the same results. Which should drive up the price of their seed.

As to good looking veggies/fruit that don't taste like anything, that seems to be what the market wants. It's tough to taste fruit in the store. It's not tough to tell if a fruit doesn't look good. Free market and all.

Plenty of great tasting vegetable seeds are available, it's amazing! Most are open pollinated so you can save seeds and grow forever! I feel sorry for Monsanto trying to crack that market! they better come up with great tasting varieties else they don't stand a chance! Seems like they have the tools to do just that! I can' wait! More choices is excellent!! Yahoo!
Supermarket produce is getting better because they are well aware that consumers are catching on to artesian food markets and they will try to compete. I hardly buy any fruit or meat at the grocery store. Sam's club has excellent steaks, and great crab legs. So some exceptions Chicken I get from the Amish. It is so much better! Once in awhile I see comparable chicken in the grocery stores. Fruit I get at farmer's markets or fruit stores only. And these places are jammed with people!!

Monsanto has managed to make huge amounts of money. Whatever they are doing the apparently get it.

The technology is there, and certainly can be used for fruit trees, but it takes time to study the genetic makeup of trees
to find useful genes that tell you something. This will happen in the future, good article thanks!

The same thing is being done with fruit trees. There was an article in Good Fruit Grower July 2013. Name of the program is RosBREED. They listed work on cherry, peach, and apple; members of the Rosaceae family. It remains to be seen whether they can really predict the best progeny ahead of time. Basically it's being done to save money by testing less trees.

The dark side is coming over? Sounds good to me!

Just wondered what other sources were thinking on the matter. You might be interested.

Here is a link that might be useful: Monsanto trying to patent natural foods

I wonder if they could do it for certain permaculture crops. Chestnuts for example, to speed the selection of virus resistant species, and oaks, which have difficult genes for sweetness.

Glib, no simple gene has been identified for blight resistance in chestnuts, but the American Chestnut Foundation has sought (and/or is seeking) to genetically modify American chestnuts with Chinese chestnut genes.

As to the overall idea, this method is nothing new. I remember seeing my brother-in-law do this with wheat when I visited him in his lab over ten years ago, and he was just doing pretty normal work for the crop science PhD student he was at the time.