If certain plants mutated, which mutations would cause more impact for society?

When I first read the main question I had all sorts of positive scenarios in mind like Honey Crisp apples being able to grow in Florida and Vidalias having a longer growing season.

With your scenarios it would be a nightmare if crops became so obviously dangerous. I think we would need to control crops more, maybe have more hydroponic farms where bad crops can’t contaminate good ones.

These days? Grasses that sprung up everywhere and all bloomed on the same day with an electrical pulse that interfered with every circuit, switch, and power source within a quarter mile.

Followed by roses that smell wonderful but give you ebola when you sniff them.

I think that a positive mutation would be to have beans and legumes that reduce farting.

Another good mutation would be flowers that don’t wilt – they stay colorful for weeks and weeks,

The worst mutated monster would be a Poison Oak Star Thistle hybrid. Giant spikey flowering vines that stab and spread poison and cover fields overnight causing misery and mayhem. lol

@zenvelo LOL..The Ebola Rose. singing to the tune of Yellow Rose of Texas. haha

My back lawn sometimes grows so wildly that it threatens to consume me. Is that what you had in mind?

@elbanditoroso Another good mutation would be flowers that don’t wilt – they stay colorful for weeks and weeks,
Positive to whom? I can see many florist just making it unless they raise the price of flowers to Buck Rodger’s height. That bouquet of roses for Valentine day might cost you almost as much as a used car. Of course the niche business of floral exchange, selling or bartering your flowers to others before they wilted would make some people rich almost overnight, Not to mention the phone app developers that will create programs to make finding people to exchange better and easier.

I can think of one mutation that has already occurred and one that I fear might happen in the future.

The one that’s already occurred is the hybridization of wheat. Source

It’s not GMO per se – but the modern wheat (now known as dwarf wheat and semi-dwarf wheat) that farmers grow now has been modified by seed companies that choose particular strains of a plant with desirable characteristics, and bred them to reinforce those characteristics. It looks nothing like the wheat of my childhood.

If you’ve had a drive through any of the U.S. grain belt (Iowa, Nebraska) you’ll notice no “amber waves of grain” as mentioned in the lyrics of “America the Beautiful”.

It’s short, stocky and meant to produce higher yields.. but it’s irrefutable that since this modern wheat has been used to produce products the incidence of gluten intolerance, Celiac and even misdiagnosed fibromyalgia due to high gluten content products.

The one that I fear for the future is any sort of mutation with Kudzu. If you’re not from a Southern US state or are unfamiliar with this powerfully invasive species see here for more information.

Imagine if poison ivy or any other poisonous plant mutated with Kudzu? This plant scares me all by itself…and a mutation of this plant spooks me all the more!

@geeky_mama The one that I fear for the future is any sort of mutation with Kudzu.
Flashbacks from Day of the Triffids?

@Hypocrisy_Central – I’ve never heard of Day of the Triffids…but something tells me I should look it up to really get scared. ;)