FOR YEARS, much of the commer cial conversation around advanced breeding tools has centered on the biggest acre crops. Corn and soybeans command scale, investment and atten tion for good reason. But that focus can also leave a lot of opportunity sitting off to the side. Pairwise CEO Tom Adams says that is exactly where his company looked. Adams says that while the science continues to evolve, Pairwise has stayed anchored to a simple goal since its found ing eight years ago: making plants easier to grow and easier to eat. That framing shifts the conversation in a way that moves gene editing away from a purely technical discussion and toward a more practical question: where does innovation actually show up in the value chain? Start With the Plant. End With the Plate Pairwise’s early work focused on a proof- of-concept leafy greens, specifically mus tard greens that typically carry a bitter, spicy bite. By removing that spiciness through gene editing, the company cre ated a product that could be eaten fresh rather than cooked. “We made these leafy greens that are very high in nutrition, but typically would be bitter mustard greens,” Adams says. As investment has long centered on corn and soy, one company is working across row and permanent crops to explore how gene editing translates into real-world value. By Aimee Nielson, Seed World U.S. Editor “One usually cooks the greens to reduce the strong flavor, but we took the spici ness out using gene editing and were able to sell fresh salad.” The product itself mattered. But what mattered more was what it revealed about how consumers respond to innovation. “It really proved this hypothesis we have, that tangible products give con sumers a different response than they do to a survey,” he says. “You may still get surveys where people will be a little skeptical of technology in food. But when you give them something cool, they can see the benefit, and they tend to want to eat it.” Having successfully demonstrated that proof-of-concept, the insight shaped how Pairwise approaches development and how it thinks about communication. Rebuilding a Crop from the Ground Up Pairwise is now working on traits in black berry that benefit production, and traits that are appealing for consumption at the same time. “In one generation we were created a much more compact blackberry plant that can now be grown at a density two to three times that of normally grow blackberries,” Adams says. “We’ve ena bled higher productivity per acre, pack Where Gene Editing Meets the Consumer 6 / SEEDWORLD.COM INTERNATIONAL EDITION 2026 ing in roughly 2.5 times as many plants as a standard blackberry field.” Traditional blackberry production comes with challenges tied to its growth habit. “Blackberries are these brambles that get all tangled up together and have to a lot of pruning that has to be done to grow them commercially,” he says. “But we’ve made them into smaller bushes, and you can plant them more densely, and that translates into a really significant increase in yield.” The changes extend beyond plant architecture. Higher density and more controlled growth can compress the production cycle and improve efficiency. On the consumer side, Pairwise is developing seedless blackberries, a trait aimed at improving the eating experience. “We now have a seedless blackberry, which creates a really different eating experience,” Adams says. The compact blackberry is already being grown and sold in Colombia, where Adams says local demand has kept much of the product in-country. The seedless version remains in earlier stages, currently in field testing. The Gap Between Science and What People Actually Buy The role of biotechnology in agriculture
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