mcgroo: From the article:
> The reason why many fruit trees are grafted is because they do not grow true to seed. Only by grafting the scion wood (a cutting of a branch) from the original tree onto another rootstock (the base another tree with roots) can you ensure that you get the same fruit each time.
> If we consider Granny Smith apples for example, the scion wood of all grafted trees of this variety, all around the world, everywhere, can be traced back to a single tree in one part of the world! Quite amazing when you think about it. in the case of the Granny Smith apple variety. it all originated from a single seedling that came up by chance from a pile of discarded crab apples in Australia in 1868 and was discovered by Maria Ann Smith, who propagated the cultivar. In each part of the world where a Granny Smith apple is grown, scion wood which is a clone of the parent tree will be grafted onto a various different rootstocks to cope with the local growing conditions.
Moos_Mumsy: [I have an apple tree grown from the seed of a store bought apple](https://i.imgur.com/nPl1lgA.jpg) carelessly tossed on the ground. I have no idea what the original apple was or what I have now. The apples taste pretty good just before they turn yellow. After that they are only good for baking and apple sauce. But I still like that I have this tree in my yard.
Smeghead333: If anyone cares, this is because even if the tree self-fertilizes, the sperm and egg cells would each undergo meiosis, and so have half of the parent’s genetic material. The odds that those halves complementing precisely all along the genome, so that the fertilized zygote would be identical to the parent, are almost zero.
On average, you’d expect that the seed would have lost roughly half of the heterozygosity present in the parent.
ChrysMYO: So uh….. The Apple may, in fact, fall far from the tree?
I’m out
rageofheaven: Maybe that’s why my daughter is black…
My semen isn’t “true to seed”.
friend1949: There are probably thousands of apple varieties. There is an apple orchard in Maine I want to visit with hundreds. Johnny Appleseeds apples, he sold seedlings, were from seed and could only be trusted to produce hard cider.
S_A_N_D_: This is true for most fruit and a lot of the ornamental trees you might buy for your yard.
Psudopod: Apple trees are dogs. Different breeds of trees are different breeds of dogs, like dalmatians. Cultivars, like Red Delicious, are Spot. Good boy. Spot has puppies, his children won’t have good same spot pattern, even if he has puppies with Spotte, his ringer from the rule 63 universe. Their spots will always be different. You want more Spot. He’s got this dot on his ear, and a splotch on his leg, it all comes together, you know? So you get a puppy, and you give it a Spot skin graft! And the skin where you gave the graft, oh, it’s perfect! There is the splotch! Wonderful. We need more. The puppy is a dog. Looks just like Spot, and it’s really what’s on the outside that counts. You get some skin off him, it’s grown out really well, put it on a whole litter of puppies. Spot skin for all! Nowadays, some people go to adopt a puppy, they don’t say dog, or even dalmatian! They ask for a Spot! Your good boy, for everyone.
HosonZes: Nor is any human. You either reproduce or clone. (Note: Cutting off limbs and planting them will have varying results)
MisfitsFromMars: Nature is weird.
spaceinv8er: Botany 101
floeds: I once heard that, before people knew this, they planted a huge amount of apple trees in America, only to find out later that the apples tasted like shit.
Source: QI (I think)
Paronfesken: Why don’t we have fruit trees in our towns and cities? The other trees are not that useful.
Eternalsins: Apples are hyper-heterozygotes. Basically the only reason we have different apple species in a store is because each brand is techinically grown fron a single tree due to grafting. All Granny Smith apples came from the same “tree”.
The_Syndic: This is why there are certain areas that make the best cider. Like English West Country has many ancient orchards with completely unique types of apples.
tom_doobie: avocados too
klock23s: Same with potatoes, you can grow them from seed but you don’t know what you’ll get
JobberTrev: How can any apple be classified as “non-gmo” when the only way to even have those apples is to modify them.
budom: TIL apples can’t be pirated
My_usrname_of_choice: Hang on, I don’t understand.
I get the whole grafting process, but why do the seeds of the apples that grow not grow the same apples that they are? Are the seeds genetically the same as the original plant?
Morph247: Fun fact: Granny Smith apples came from my town/suburb and we have a Granny Smith festival every year. Our suburb’s logo is of the apple.
Lagaluvin: This also means that there are an enormous number of amazing ‘forgotten’ apple varieties from a time before centralised food production, just sitting in hedgerows and back gardens, waiting to be cut down and lost forever. It’s kinda sad.