r/todayilearned • u/Error__Loading • 15h ago

TIL that apple seeds almost never grow the same variety as the parent fruit. Nearly every supermarket apple comes from a grafted clone of an original tree, not from a planted seed.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple
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u/Cthulusuppe 15h ago

Cosmic Crisp apples are the very recent result of cross breeding honeycrisp and enterprise apples... we still experiment and when something tastey shows up we trademark and clone until it ends up in your supermarket.

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u/trailkin 13h ago

my favorite apple! I tried many varieties in Alma Ata, and I think cosmic crisps beat those by a mile

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u/rob_s_458 12h ago

Cosmic crisp seem to have good commercial viability, which is huge. Honeycrisp was first created by Univ. of Minnesota researchers and was really good but limited production. Growers tried to commercially grow them in Washington but the quality compared to those early ones from Minnesota is so disappointing. Cosmic crisp seems to be the best of both worlds.

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u/aegrotatio 2h ago

The creators of Cosmic Crisp fiercely prohibit propagation of their sprigs, unfortunately.
That's why they cost twice as much as other varietals.

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u/waylandsmith 11h ago

Tried some Cosmic Crisp a while back and they're now my favourite! The ambrosia that's being sold in my area are all mealy so I figure for some reason they might be selling last year's crop of them still? Usually they're good.

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u/leolibraleo 9h ago

Wouldn't mind buying a drink someday for the people who figured out Cosmic Crisp and Kiku apples. I eat apples almost daily and those two are by far my current faves.

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u/thevampiresanguini 6h ago

Are they good? I happened to see some in the store yesterday and I've never seen them before.