2007年VOA标准英语-Scientist Attempting to Create Perfect Strawber

By June Soh
College Park, Maryland
26 July 2007
 

Have you imagined eating a strawberry that tastes somewhat like chocolate, or cinnamon, or mint? That may be available in American grocery stores soon and eventually on the global market.  A scientist's decades-long effort to develop a better strawberry is about to show results.   VOA's June Soh visited the scientist at a greenhouse on the University of Maryland campus near Washington, D.C.  Carol Pearson narrates¹ the story.

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Harry Swartz picks and samples strawberries daily

Day after day Harry Swartz eats strawberries.  He is a plant breeder and professor at the University of Maryland. "It took me about 75 to 100,000 fruits to test to get to this particular variety.  And it has a nice moschata (musky) flavor and a fair amount of sugar to it."

Swartz has a life-long quest: creating the perfect strawberry.  It should be sweet, flavorful, resistant³ to disease and insects, and firm enough for shipping⁴.  And there is one more quality he is looking for:  it should grow so that it can be harvested quickly by machine rather than picked painstakingly⁵ by hand. 

"As you can see all the fruit tends to hang down.  What we need to do is (for it) to stand upright like it does originally when it first flowers. We want fruit to be up here so a mechanical harvester can come through and pop the fruit off and collect it in a reasonable fashion."

Swartz also says it is important to develop a fruit that ripens⁶ all at the same time to get the mechanical harvest to work.

Martha Connolly

He and his research partner at the university are working to create such a strawberry, with support from the Maryland Industrial Partnerships⁷ Program.

Martha Connolly is the director of the program. "Maryland Industrial Partnerships is a funding program that helps connect University of Maryland faculty⁸ to local companies to do research and development projects that have commercial applications."

Swartz has spent his career in the berry field after earning a doctorate⁹ in pomology, the science that deals with fruit growing, in 1979 from Cornell University in New York.  His love of strawberries started at an early age.

"I really like strawberries since I was a kid and I have always enjoyed the nice experience. I always expected eating fresh strawberries in my grandparents' home in Buffalo¹⁰, New York. It is important to people that strawberries have a nice aroma¹¹ and a good amount of sugar to hit them in the beginning when they eat it."

Designer strawberries

Swartz's decades-long effort to create a better strawberry has resulted in developing strawberries with various flavors such as cinnamon, vanilla¹², chocolate and mint.  "It takes a lot of hard work.  We create about 60,000 seeds a year. For my control hybridization we plant about 25,000 seedlings¹³ out in the fields.  Our British counterpart also has about 36,000 seedlings.  We have to evaluate each one of those several times a year -- six, seven, eight, nine times.  That involves eating a lot of strawberries."

Swartz's company, Five Aces¹⁴ Breeding, which is the privatized version of the University of Maryland's small fruit program, has breeding fields in Mexico, Spain, England, Canada and in the United States.  "We really want to develop Asian and Australian markets as well, as we have small ventures started in Ethiopia outside of our normal cooperative area, which is the EU and the Americas."

Five Aces has a noble goal.  That is to get people to eat more fruits. "I look at the candy industry and refined sugar industry as being my competitor.  We want somebody to have fruit that will just give them such a wonderful experience that they will rather have that than have a candy bar," Swartz said.

Some of his so-called designer strawberries will make their debut¹⁵ in small quantities on the U.S and Middle East markets as early as next year. If consumer acceptance is there, Swartz says a large quantity will be available and distributed worldwide.

1 narrates   

v.故事( narrate的第三人称单数 )

参考例句：

• It narrates the unconstitutional acts of James II. 它历数了詹姆斯二世的违法行为。 来自辞典例句
• Chapter three narrates the economy activity which Jew return the Occident. 第三章讲述了犹太人重返西欧后的经济活动。 来自互联网

2 harry   

vt.掠夺，蹂躏，使苦恼

参考例句：

• Today,people feel more hurried and harried.今天，人们感到更加忙碌和苦恼。
• Obama harried business by Healthcare Reform plan.奥巴马用医改掠夺了商界。

3 resistant   

adj.(to)抵抗的，有抵抗力的

参考例句：

• Many pests are resistant to the insecticide.许多害虫对这种杀虫剂有抵抗力。
• They imposed their government by force on the resistant population.他们以武力把自己的统治强加在持反抗态度的人民头上。

4 shipping   

n.船运（发货，运输，乘船）

参考例句：

• We struck a bargain with an American shipping firm.我们和一家美国船运公司谈成了一笔生意。
• There's a shipping charge of ￡5 added to the price.价格之外另加五英镑运输费。

5 painstakingly   

adv. 费力地 苦心地

参考例句：

• Every aspect of the original has been closely studied and painstakingly reconstructed. 原作的每一细节都经过了仔细研究，费尽苦心才得以重现。
• The cause they contrived so painstakingly also ended in failure. 他们惨淡经营的事业也以失败而告终。

6 ripens   

v.成熟，使熟( ripen的第三人称单数 )

参考例句：

• The sun ripens the crops. 太阳使庄稼成熟。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Then their seed ripens, and soon they turn brown and shrivel up. 随后，它们的种子熟了，不久就变枯萎。 来自辞典例句

7 partnerships   

n.伙伴关系( partnership的名词复数 )；合伙人身份；合作关系

参考例句：

• Partnerships suffer another major disadvantage: decision-making is shared. 合伙企业的另一主要缺点是决定要由大家来作。 来自英汉非文学 - 政府文件
• It involved selling off limited partnerships. 它涉及到售出有限的合伙权。 来自辞典例句

8 faculty   

n.才能；学院，系；(学院或系的)全体教学人员

参考例句：

• He has a great faculty for learning foreign languages.他有学习外语的天赋。
• He has the faculty of saying the right thing at the right time.他有在恰当的时候说恰当的话的才智。

9 doctorate   

n.(大学授予的)博士学位

参考例句：

• He hasn't enough credits to get his doctorate.他的学分不够取得博士学位。
• Where did she do her doctorate?她在哪里攻读博士？

10 buffalo   

n.(北美)野牛；(亚洲)水牛

参考例句：

• Asian buffalo isn't as wild as that of America's. 亚洲水牛比美洲水牛温顺些。
• The boots are made of buffalo hide. 这双靴子是由水牛皮制成的。

11 aroma   

n.香气，芬芳，芳香

参考例句：

• The whole house was filled with the aroma of coffee.满屋子都是咖啡的香味。
• The air was heavy with the aroma of the paddy fields.稻花飘香。

12 vanilla   

n.香子兰，香草

参考例句：

• He used to love milk flavoured with vanilla.他过去常爱喝带香草味的牛奶。
• I added a dollop of vanilla ice-cream to the pie.我在馅饼里加了一块香草冰激凌。

13 seedlings   

n.刚出芽的幼苗( seedling的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Ninety-five per cent of the new seedlings have survived. 新栽的树苗95%都已成活。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》
• In such wet weather we must prevent the seedlings from rotting. 这样的阴雨天要防止烂秧。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》

14 aces   

abbr.adjustable convertible-rate equity security (units) 可调节的股本证券兑换率；aircraft ejection seat 飞机弹射座椅；automatic control evaluation simulator 自动控制评估模拟器n.擅长…的人( ace的名词复数 )；精于…的人；（ 网球 ）（对手接不到发球的）发球得分；爱司球

参考例句：

• The local representative of ACES will define the local area. ACES的当地代表将划定当地的范围。 来自互联网
• Any medical expenses not covered by ACES insurance are the sole responsibility of the parents. 任何ACES保险未包括的医疗费用一律是父母的责任。 来自互联网

15 debut   

n.首次演出，初次露面

参考例句：

• That same year he made his Broadway debut, playing a suave radio journalist.在那同一年里，他初次在百老汇登台，扮演一个温文而雅的电台记者。
• The actress made her debut in the new comedy.这位演员在那出新喜剧中首次登台演出。