engin__r t1_j6k11wm wrote on January 30, 2023 at 9:46 PM

Reply to comment by Twin_Spoons in ELI5: Why do so many fruits have seedless varieties but the apple and cherry do not? by JanaCinnamon

Aren't apples grafted anyway? I've read that if you plant an apple seed, the fruit from the resulting tree will be nothing like the original apple.

GalFisk t1_j6k1hoe wrote on January 30, 2023 at 9:49 PM

Yup, I think it's something like 1 in 40000 seeds that will actually yield a palatable variety. Avocado is similar.

czbz t1_j6kiavv wrote on January 30, 2023 at 11:40 PM

Where did you find that 1 in 40000 figure? From what I can see online you can grow and eat apples from seed, it's just a gamble because you don't know what the apples will taste like. Nothing I read said it was extremely unlikely that they will be palatable.

GalFisk t1_j6m1fw3 wrote on January 31, 2023 at 7:35 AM

That was from memory, but when I google it I find 1 out of 80000 instead.

Curiously I don't find a good source, only almost the exact same sentence repeated over and over, with slight variations, and the same weird grammatical issue/quirk.

This is the sentence: "Apples do not come true from seed. Actually about 1 in every 80,000 apple trees grown from seed is quality factors good enough to even be considered for evaluation."

czbz t1_j6mm1id wrote on January 31, 2023 at 12:12 PM

OK - I think "considered for evaluation" is a much higher standard than palatable. I guess it's only worth considering for commercial evaluation if it seems likely to have some competitive advantage over all the other apple varieties currently available.

cockmanderkeen t1_j6k4ze4 wrote on January 30, 2023 at 10:11 PM

I thought this was the case for all fruit that grows on trees.