Eli5: Could selective breeding be considered a type of genetic modification?

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I’m referring specifically to plants with this question. I know that modern genetic modification is done in a laboratory, moving genomes around to achieve desired traits and whatnot. What I got to wondering about is whether or not selective breeding could be considered a long term type of genetic modification.

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Anonymous 0 Comments

Absolutely! For example, a lot of the fruits and vegetables you eat today were unrecognizable and did not exist many years ago, but came due to selective breeding and hybridization.

For example, bananas used to have lots of large, hard seeds. What you call a lemon today is a hybrid between bitter oranges and citrons.

This link has some more examples:

https://www.businessinsider.com/what-foods-looked-like-before-genetic-modification-2016-1?amp

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