“If you’ve had really fresh broccoli, you know it’s an entirely different thing,” he said. “And if the health-policy goal is to vastly increase the consumption of broccoli, then we need a ready supply, at an attractive price.”

The new broccoli is part of a mad dash by Cornell scientists to remake much of the produce aisle. The goal is to help shift American attitudes toward fruits and vegetables by increasing their allure and usefulness in cooking, while maintaining or even increasing their nutritional loads. In recent months, the Cornell lab has turned out a full-flavored habanero pepper without the burning heat, snap peas without the pesky strings, and luscious apples that won’t brown when sliced — a huge boon to school cafeteria matrons plagued by piles of fruit that students won’t eat unless it is cut up.

The Eastern Broccoli Project, based at the university’s Agricultural Experiment Station here in this small Finger Lakes city, also aims to maximize the new broccoli’s concentration of glucoraphanin, a compound that has been found to aid in preventing cancer.

In this crusade, Mr. Bjorkman, 50, is a hybrid of Mr. Wizard and the Mr. Smith who went to Washington. While developing the new plants, he has lobbied lawmakers on Capitol Hill to include money for vegetable research in the new farm bill. He has reached out to farmers, grocers and economists to ensure the new broccoli finds a mass market, first in the East, then in other parts of the country.

Two years of successful trials involving the largest seed companies have made the hot-weather broccoli plants ready for farming, though it may be several more years before East Coast grocers start selling the local florets.

But while Mr. Bjorkman is a passionate agrarian and vegetarian, his Perfect Broccoli may challenge a purist view of food. Critics are generally fine with his science, which involves fairly traditional forms of biotechnology, like using petri dishes to mate broccoli with radishes and other plants that would never hook up on their own, and selecting genes through this breeding that can minimize production costs and maximize consumer appeal.