Whatever we think, this sort of research and its application are basically inevitable. Personally, I am less concerned with the technologies of genetic modification and more concerned with the socioeconomic impacts, i.e., who benefits from such technologies and is it at others' expense?

And I hope that, if used in agriculture, people will still be concerned about how things taste so we don't end up with more produce that is disease resistant, looks uniform and beautiful, and keeps and travels well... but tastes like cardboard.

I see your point. We have many hybrid varieties that are not very flavorful. I'd like to see what becomes available and judge each based on individual merits.

However undesirable a new tomato choice might be for some the social acceptance would not be nearly as controversial as what is being proposed with the CRISPR technology in altering future human embryos to cut out genes responsible for whatever we find life compromising.

There are many practices and technologies we use on plants and livestock that we manage to not normalize on human beings. The ethics battle on use of genetic technologies on people is inevitable, but refusing to use them on tomatoes isn't going to hold them off. And while a tomato that gets to market earlier may only serve the livelihood of certain farmers in short-season zones and seem negligible as a cause to the rest of us, CRISPR might result in advances that can save millions of lives in other places where food is hard to produce. It might also be a formidable tool against disease in humans. Just because the ethical questions are hard doesn't mean entire technologies should be shut down. The loss of life or quality of life in the end might be worse if we don't pursue these technologies, and official policies of not pursuing technological advances don't generally work, anyway. There are no easy outs.

Well stated. I've heard different plant breeders mention that the advances brought on by transgenic technology, even for those not creating transgenic crops, has lead to much faster generation time for a new variety with the attributes they are seeking.

But who wouldn't want a tomato with all the qualities of their favorite variety, except 2 weeks earlier? Some growers might be inclined to double crop in the season that allows only a single crop now. Some northern growers may be growing tomatoes that cannot feasibly do so. I like the aspect that I may have more opportunity to grow more 80-90 day varieties and not rely on early varieties that I'm not particularly fond of.