Doug Heath, a tomato breeder for Monsanto Co., offers visitors juicy slices of 'Cherokee Purple,' a delicate variety with a sweetness and acidity he is trying to replicate in hardier commercial fruit.

"We want to see these in the stores more than one month a year," Heath told visitors this month at his research plot in Woodland (Yolo County). He gave out the tomato slices at Field Days, an annual gathering for farmers and distributors to see new crops from Monsanto's Seminis vegetable seed unit.

Monsanto is accelerating its push to identify thousands of genetic markers in fruits and vegetables as it brings the tools of biotechnology to conventional breeding, giving Heath the ability to select for everything from taste to disease resistance. It's also allowing the world's biggest vegetable-seed producer to develop new varieties in two to four years, down from as many as 10 years. Using the markers is like having "X-ray glasses" that let breeders peer inside a leaf clipping or seed to find what will grow, Heath said.

His efforts are gathering momentum at the St. Louis company, which bought Seminis for $1.4 billion in 2005 and is looking to expand its market share. Monsanto said it has identified about 5,000 genetic markers in peppers, more than 4,000 in tomatoes and thousands more in melons, cauliflower, broccoli, cucumbers and beans. The company plans to identify more vegetable markers this year than in the past 20 years combined.

Food and Water Watch, a consumer advocacy group in Washington that opposes genetic engineering, has raised alarms about the products. It sponsored petitions urging retailers including Walmart not to stock genetically engineered vegetables. Monsanto's sweet corn "hasn't been tested for human safety," according to one online petition.

The company says engineered seeds have been used since 1996 and "there has not been one documented case of biotech crops being unsafe for humans or the environment," according to its website. Monsanto said it invests 95 percent of its vegetable research in conventional breeding and 5 percent on genetic engineering.

A lab on Monsanto's Woodland site annually analyzes the genetic makeup of 7 million vegetable samples. The lab can identify genes associated with flavor, appearance, texture and nutrition, as well as traits for disease-resistance and susceptibility.

As recently as five years ago, Monsanto had genetic markers for only a few tomato traits. When Heath started working in 1993 for a predecessor company, there wasn't even a computer.

"We're breeding in a different way now," Heath said. "It's so powerful."

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Genetic markers give Monsanto an edge

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