Talk:Fish tomato

Name

Am thinking this article should be re-named "Endless Summer", the name the tomato was branded as. Fish tomato does not appear in google scholar [1] whereas endless summer tomato does [2]. Even in a normal google search (with recipe removed) it only appears four times in the first five pages [3] and even then it is posed as a question, is part of a blog or wikianswers. Also Endless Summer would be a more neutral name AIRcorn (talk) 09:59, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

I agree that ideally the article should have a different name, however I'm not certain that endless summer is correct. This site says that endless summer lacked ACC oxidase to prevent ripening. If this variety with antifreeze proteins was never commericalised, it might not have a name. Smartse (talk) 10:24, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

Oops, you are right. Should recheck my facts before spouting off. Looks like it is made by the same company, but is not the one with the fish gene. Thankfully you are onto it. AIRcorn (talk) 13:13, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

No worries, its a fairly easy mistake to make. I tried to find some sources about this but have struggled so far - I'm not entirely certain it is notable enough for its own article to be honest. It might be better if it were incorporated into genetically modified plant, antifreeze protein and genetically modified food controversies. I've asked here to see if someone can provide a copy of a NYT article about it which might help to demonstrate notability. Bit off the point, but I can't work out why they didn't just try overexpressing antifreeze proteins already present in tomatoes - then people might not have made such a fuss! Smartse (talk) 13:32, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

Yeah I wondered about the notabilty when I failed to find any sources for fish-tomato. Although searching for anti freeze tomato and frost tolerant tomato shows a few more (I am not able to access journals at the moment so can't look at them all). This gives a breif summary and is probably reliable enough to use. Could be notable if it is the first animal to plant transformation. Don't know why they chose the fish proteins, though according to wikipedia antifreeze proteins from plants are weak. Plus look at golden rice, just using plant genes does not make the problems go away AIRcorn (talk) 14:43, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

Still not sure about the name. I've got a pdf of a NYT article about "frankenstein tomatoes" from 1992 but unfortunately it can't be used as a source for much. As a taste of the lack of scientific knowledge: "How about the guy who makes 30 gallons of his best tomato sauce out of those tomatoes with the Arctic flounder gene and freezes it?" Mr. Trillin asked. "A year later he pulls it out. It's moldy. It slops all over the place." They obviously never heard of proteins denaturing! That review does look like a reasonable source though and I guess the NYT can be used to demonstrate notability, even if we don't really state much else. Golden rice uses one bacterial gene btw anyway - although in that case its because changing the plant genes screw up the rest of carotenoid synthesis which isn't very helpful. If you want journal articles, drop me an email and I'll be happy to send you a copy if I can access them. Smartse (talk) 13:45, 3 August 2010 (UTC)

I can access most journals at Uni, but will let you know if I need any help. The Mr. Trillin comments have to be sarcasm. A solution to the name and notability problem could be to create a page called Genetically modified tomato and move the info there. The Endless summer and Bt Tomato could also be included. Flavr Savr could possible be merged too. The fish tomato is not in this database which makes me think it never got close to being marketed. Either way I don't beleive we will be able to add much more info to this article than we currently have. AIRcorn (talk) 00:15, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

I was also thinking that Genetically modified tomato might be a good idea, this could be included in a frost tolerance section. Shall we be bold and merge flavr savr? Smartse (talk) 08:49, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

WP:BRD I suppose. Will leave a message on User talk:Infoeco's page. He created this article and might have an opinion. AIRcorn (talk) 00:15, 5 August 2010 (UTC)

That was some great digging on this important topic in the history of agriculture and biotechnology! I think it might be a mistake to combine this with Flavr Savr in an article called Genetically modified tomato for two reasons. First, the main source that is cited (Pandora's Picnic Basket) spends a lot of time describing how consumers were confused between Flavr Savr and the "Fish Tomato" and it would be sad to add to that confusion, especially because they are very different companies and have such different properties. Second, it appears likely that other GE tomatoes will enter the market in the coming years from different producers and having different properties. It seems that keeping them separate for the time being would help as the addition of future GE plants may make one article on GE tomatoes unwieldy. This points to the larger problem the Wikipedia community will increasingly face with GE organisms: taxonomy. It is quite clear that both commercialized and non-commercialized but culturally significant GE plants will become a part of Wikipedia work. The jury is still out on naming conventions for GE species as far as I can tell. There are proposals for fitting GE plants into Biological and Agrictulrural naming conventions, but I don't think there has been definitive rulings in either area. This is why I chose to launch the stub based on the popular way of referring to this plant rather than to the less-well known company name or the extended name that appears on the USDA field test application. I am sure we will be referring to naming conventions many times over the next few years. Infoeco (talk) 04:27, 5 August 2010 (UTC)

I agree with most of what you say, but still think the best solution is to combine the articles. Regarding your first point, I believe the confusion between flavr savr, fish tomato and even the Zenaca tomato paste could best be explained by having them all in the same article and explaining in the article that they are different products. As to your second point, it is hard to predict the future so we should probably not organize our articles on what we think might happen. If the GM tomato article does become too unwieldy there is no reason we can't split it later. As it stands at the moment all the information will fit quite nicely into one article. Also having a single broad article allows information about developing GM tomatoes that would not be notable in themselves a place to be mentioned. I just don't see this article expanding much further, especially as the main source mentioned (Pandora's Picnic Basket) has only three pages on the subject. AIRcorn (talk) 09:14, 5 August 2010 (UTC)

I can see the value in including Flavr Savr, Zeneca and the "Fish Tomato" all in the same article as a means of comparing a variety of early transgenic organisms that insert transgenes into Tomatoes with very different effects. However, the Flavr Savr article is already quite extensive, and clubbing that with the other two AND updating a "GM Tomato" article with new varieties / cultivars seems unwieldy. However, maybe someone else can chime in with one more perspective. I will try to keep improving the story of the "Fish Tomato" either way. Also, I have started Timeline_of_genetically_modified_organisms based on Timeline_of_computer_viruses_and_worms which may be one place where the transgenic tomato story can be told. Also Genetically_modified_food#Development has a table for different plants, which could use an update for Tomatoes. Infoeco (talk) 04:13, 6 August 2010 (UTC)

How about have the GMT article as a main article, where the differences between different GM tomatoes could be explained and then having {{main}} links to each article? This would allow the coverage of Bt etc. whilst still keeping the articles separate. In my opinion it would be better to improve and add to Genetic_engineering#History instead and eventually spin off History of genetic engineering once it is long enough. I also noticed we have Genetically_modified_organism#History so I don't really see why we need another (unsourcede) history article. I can't see what needs updating in Genetically_modified_food#Development about tomatoes - can you explain? Smartse (talk) 10:14, 6 August 2010 (UTC)

I prefer Smartse's solution, because it keeps our options open going forward. I created the timeline because I have found that many readers of wikipedia are able to access and process information more easily if it is in a timeline or other visual form. Looking forward to working on DataVisualization and information design issues on Wikipedia in the coming years. As for Genetically_modified_food#Development I guess I was wondering if the "Tomato" table entry is supposed to just be about the failed FlavrSavr product, and if there was a need or room to mention other commercialized transgenic tomatoes (are there any?). Does the Chinese-grown products that are mentioned in the table also refer to the FlavrSavr product with the same transgene inserted, or a totally different product and property? The table seems to lump them together as the same product, but there is no citation and I know very little about Chinese GE technology. Infoeco (talk) 20:35, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

GMT started. Still feel that this should be merged, but will wait for GMT to be developed further before deciding whether to add a merge template. AIRcorn (talk) 06:52, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

I just stumbled on this page, and it's been a few years since the above conversation occurred about merging this article. However, there really isn't much content in this article after that time. It seems that this information could be rather concisely integrated into Genetically modified tomato since there is a bit of content repeated there already, so the evidence for a merge does seem strong. I guess the main question to ask to determine if a merge should be done or not is does this article currently offer something unique that cannot be summarized over at GM tomato? Reading over WP:PAGEDECIDE, I'm not seeing strong evidence for a separate article. Any thoughts from folks since it's been a few years now since the last conversation? Kingofaces43 (talk) 22:24, 12 June 2014 (UTC)

i'm good with that! Jytdog (talk) 00:31, 13 June 2014 (UTC)

Done. Kingofaces43 (talk) 15:20, 16 June 2014 (UTC)