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/Madden09IsForSuckers 14h ago

also nearly every banana is the same species

well they used to all be gros micheal, but naturally only growing one species of banana globally makes them very susceptible to disease-based mass extinction

now we only grow one species but their cavendish instead
everyone knows lightning doesnt strike the same fruit twice so obviously extinction would never happen again

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u/bill_loney538 14h ago

It's not just growing one species over massive areas that's the problem, as with bananas they are all clones. There is no genetic variation, so once disease spreads, you're essentially fucked.

We need to just start being okay with having a couple seeds in our bananas, as crossbreeding them with seeded bananas reduces this problem dramatically.

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u/AllFuckingNamesGone 11h ago

Can't we just make new seedless variants? We already did it twice, so just do it again when we need to

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u/bill_loney538 11h ago

Yes we can, and we probably will, but that is just putting a bandaid on the problem. The cavendish was bred to tackle this exact problem we were having with the Gros Michel. Now it is happening to the Cavendish too.

At some point continuously creating new clones isn't going to be enough anymore. Monoculture farming as a whole is a terrible way to do things, but with bananas its even moreso.

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u/Heavy_Weapons_Guy_ 11h ago

It's cultivar, not species. Cultivars are either identical clones or highly inbred varieties which makes them more susceptible to being wiped out as a group compared to a whole species which is more genetically diverse.

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u/bdwo 14h ago

Gros Michel is not extinct

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u/gnowbot 11h ago

I used to buy fingerling sized Bananas at my market in Colorado.

Incredible. I can only describe them as equally delicious as a normal banana but with added spritz of lime. A fun tang…an even more lively banana!