Not all of her work was so outlandish, however. Some of Howorth ambitions were more level-headed, if not exactly successful. She founded the UK Atomic Gardening Society in 1959, which used an early example of crowd-sourcing in order to popularize the use of irradiated seeds. Inspired by a scientist from North Carolina State University who gave her X-ray mutated peanuts which were far bigger and more robust than an ordinary example, Howorth enthusiastically presented them at a dinner party in which there were many scientists.
While her dinner guests were amused, none of them were as excited as Howorth wanted them to be. Frustrated and wondering what to do with all the left over peanuts, she decided to plant some of the leftovers. The resulting plant quickly germinated and grew into an unusually large peanut plant. This early success inspired Howorth to purchase millions of irradiated seeds imported from Speas’ backyard operation and the founding of her society.
Muriel’s intended her gardening society to act as an enormous experiment in which participants would plant the seeds and record the results in workbooks. The data would then be shared within the society. Initial excitement over these seeds led to a still unknown number of people attempting to grow new and wondrous plants in their gardens. However, enthusiasm for atomic gardening began to wane only a few years later, as the effects of nuclear radiation became better understood and the public was more aware of possible dangers. Other problems with this method included a lack of rigorous scientific controls, making results hard to track and difficult to recognize.
But the question still remains: was the idea of atomic garden experimentation a foolish dream or was it ahead of its time? On the surface it seems utterly crazy to plant mutant seeds into a suburban garden expecting it to yield scientifically beneficial results, but this concept may not be as insane as it sounds. Even though small citizen gardens scattered all over the country did not seem to yield anything interesting, many official laboratories in the United States, Europe and the former Soviet Union conducted serious experiments that are still with us today.
For instance, most of the peppermint oil sold today comes from a variety of mint that was created with thermal neutron irradiation in 1971. In Texas, a type of grapefruit known as “Rio Star” accounts for roughly 75% of total grapefruit production. It was produced by a similar process and is desired because of its vibrantly-red flesh.
Similarly, about half of the rice grown in California is of a type called Calrose 76, also a product of radio-active experimentation. In fact, over 2,000 mutant crops are officially registered all over the world which were produced by intentional irradiation. Event today, the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) the UN’s “Food and Agriculture Organization” and Japan’s “Institute of Radiation Breeding” all still experiment with atomic gardening.
Most of the documentation and virtually all of the positive results still relevant today were completed by labs, and it is basically impossible to know how informal atomic garden experiments affected the food supply today, or if any descendants still exist.
Who knows? Maybe that misshapen heirloom tomato or oddly-colored marigold growing in your garden could simply be a natural variation, passed down from generation to generation. On the other hand, perhaps they could also be the byproduct of a short-lived but real atomic gardening experiment.