RNA breakthrough creates crops that can grow 50 percent more potatoes, rice

If the concern is minerals, aren't there rocks in the soil that as they get broken down over time will release minerals?

As for non-mineral things like nitrogen, isn't the soil supposed to have an ecosystem that replenishes these things? In healthy soil, there are bacteria, fungus, earthworms, ants etc to make the soil conducive for plant growth.

Nature doesn't add artificial chemicals for fertilizer yet left to its own devices, plants thrive in natural soil. The activity of growing plants per se doesn't deplete soil. Maybe it's the use of pesticides and herbicides that kills the soil by killing the things living in it.

When I first moved from India to US, this is the first noticeable difference I found. Huge ass veggies, devoid of taste. I just couldn't believe tomatoes. They looked so pretty yet had literally no tart. So yeah I'm cool with all of these RNA fiddling etc but for the love of God, do not turn vegetables into tasteless elements that just look pretty in super market shelves.

My real shocker was onion. I mean, man I could just eat the red onion without a drop of tear in my eyes. Try doing this in India.

So those in US, if at all you ever feel like eating real vegetables hop on a 15 hour flight to Delhi or Bangalore :)

No cultivated species is the result of natural selection, they have been selected for centuries, sometimes millennia, by humans for the things we value.

For the most extreme example see seedless grapes.

This is one of my points for people who gripe so much about California.

There is absolutely nowhere else in the U.S. where you can go just about anywhere and get fresh, cheap, properly flavorful produce. Even several capitol cities of MidWest states don't have a real competitor to what's widely available and affordable in Cali.

> the nutrient content of the soil

All farmers of all types already have to replenish the nutrient content, specifically NPK, because they are depleted by farming. This has always been true. There is almost an unlimited amount of N in the atmosphere. P and K are currently mined, but many farmers are getting more efficient at using manure which are renewable resources for these. Micronutrients are small enough that it's almost a non-issue. In other words, there is no nutrient crisis for farming.

>Basically, as others have said, there is an evolutionary reason plants do not naturally grow this big (they'd kill themselves off in a few generations).

This is teleological thinking. Don't add reason to evolution. There are many very very large plants that have done well. There are many small plants that do well. Their survival strategy all depends on the resources and stresses in the environment.

In the case of a domesticated plant, there really is no limit because humans can provide all the necessary resources. It is just a matter of pushing the plants genetics towards higher yield, which is something we have done for thousands of years.

>but this implies we'd move further away from organic farming

Organic farming is a marketing term to appeal to upper class shoppers. It simply trades inputs. It trades technology for higher labor costs to create a similar product.

>Or, it would make us move to other currently unexploited land, thus worsening the global situation we are in.

Why would increasing the yield of current farmland cause people to have to create more? Higher yield means doing more with less.

>I was never under the impression that any part of human population is starving

The solution to hunger isn't to make food more expensive by limiting our ability to produce. One of the greatest things America ever did was make food cheap. It led to the obesity epidemic, but I'd rather have fat people than hungry people. The way forward is to continue to use all the technology we have to increase farming efficiency