Citing the need to discover the secret of giant marrows, the Ravengate Science Society has embarked on a major project to recover the DNA of recently deceased veggie grower Abel Pepper.
“Abel’s marrows were generational,” said society chairman Eric Meyer. “We can’t let biodiversity of that nature go extinct.”
Mr Meyer said the six-month, £10,000 project would be aimed at isolating the DNA from the remains of Mr Pepper and attempting “with all means at our disposal” to isolate the distinct series of nucleotides that gave the 77-year-old a genetic disposition towards vegetable gigantism.
The chairman admitted the project was ambitious. Previous winners of the grant had embarked on projects such as studying the declining owl population and counting roadside daisies.
Gastric juices
The initial challenge will come in reclaiming the dead allotment keeper’s DNA. The part-time scientists will first have to dissect the corpse of Mrs Rosemary Philips, of Meadowbank Lane, who has most of the dead man in her stomach.
Mrs Philips, 68, is believed to have killed and consumed Abel Pepper after failing to spot a tragic typo in a chilli recipe. She died choking on his signet ring.
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Mr Meyer said he was confident that the society could defeat a legal challenge from Mrs Philips’ family while conceding a court case would absorb most of the grant funding.
“We stand on the shoulders of Lavoisier and Galileo,” he said. “In terms of our sacrifice for science.”