Submitted by JanaCinnamon t3_10pej9d in explainlikeimfive
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Exciting_Telephone65 t1_j6k4yb4 wrote
Does that mean it only creates clones of itself? And if it can do so, why would they keep the option of fertilisation around?
Kewkky t1_j6k5ct0 wrote
More like it creates "placenta", even when unfertilized.
Muroid t1_j6k7xs6 wrote
A bit like chickens laying unfertilized eggs.
LakeStLouis t1_j6lfq87 wrote
And now I'm trying to figure out what an apple tree cloaca would look like.
Yeah, don't go down that path.
platoprime t1_j6lfwcj wrote
Roots; the answer is roots.
Sorry for whatever you stumbled on.
Hippy_Liberal1 t1_j6oafv2 wrote
The struggle is real.
Maybe something like this: https://images.app.goo.gl/QW2HsxfLxwqScsw57
Fun fake fact: Owls are the guardians of tree cloacas. Also if an apple had recently been laid, there would be some residual sauce around the edges. Delicious!
rlbond86 t1_j6khgee wrote
They don't create any offspring, just the fruit.
dedicated-pedestrian t1_j6ksfsl wrote
I mean, we basically do clone apple trees to avoid any differentiation in the fruit. Not something the plant intends or plans around though.
Suitable-Lake-2550 t1_j6lwfh8 wrote
All commercial bananas are clones from the same tree. Bred to be seedless.
Very susceptible to disease from lack of genetic diversity...
atomfullerene t1_j6lvtff wrote
Seedless fruit trees are propagated as clones, but humans do the propagating. In the wild, they would be unable to reproduce. Seeded fruit tree varieties are also propagated as clones, though.
DrChoopy t1_j6m83n5 wrote
In case of seedless varieties they do not create clones they spread “through cuttings”.
In nature there are plants that self-fertilise and create clones of themselves! They keep the option of cross pollination because plants don’t move and they need an individual able to do said fertilisation.
By creating clones you move in time… and space, so that cross pollination can happen.
*Except if you are peas!! In which case you are perfect the way that you are and you don’t need anybody else! Lol
Its-me-Syke t1_j6n5qn0 wrote
Well, because the unfertilized fruits cannot create more trees therefore once the original trees die, the fruit would cease to exist
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Sir_wlkn_contrdikson t1_j6mn5tw wrote
Is this a anti fancy way of saying GMO. From your comment, it seems as though it just happens
Spiritual_Jaguar4685 t1_j6msq9b wrote
Not a fancy way of saying GMO. Plants can do a lot of wacky genetic things totally naturally, but keep in mind pretty much any plant we eat has had thousands of years of selective breeding by humans. We've essentially trained all of our domesticated crops, naturally, to be a certain way.
Specially, plants can do some "odd" things when it comes to reproducing and creating fruits. For example, we're familiar with the concept of getting 1 set of genes from our mothers and 1 set from our fathers, they would call this "2N" genetics. In theory plants work the same way but getting 3N, 4N, 5N, etc plants is really common and doesn't hurt them as much as it would us. If you ever see a box of monstrous strawberries at the grocery they probably aren't GMO, they are just 3N or 4N strawberries (natural genetic freaks, not human engineered genetic freaks).
What I'm saying in the above is some plants, if the flowers don't get fertilized will just kill the flower and move on (like apples), other plants will keep the organ alive and produce what's called a "virgin fruit". Since no fertilization occurred the plant can't make normal seeds, but they'll probably still be there. They will just be super small or soft and you eat them without noticing them. Those are the seedless grapes and oranges and stuff per OP's prompt.
Truth-or-Peace t1_j6k35ed wrote
We do, in fact, have some varieties of seedless apples. They just aren't very popular. There are two main problems:
First, even if the apple is seedless, it's still going to have a core, and people still aren't going to want to eat the core. So making it seedless isn't super profitable. (This problem is even more pronounced in cherries: it's not the seed that people object to, but rather the stone around the seed.)
Second, apples are notoriously hard to breed. The children are nothing like their parents. Basically each tree we plant is a new roll of the dice. The odds that a mutant seedless apple will also have other desirable properties like "has at least a hint of sweetness" and "is not a crabapple" are low.
I think the Romans might have had a decent seedless apple at one point, but, if so, it went the way of the silphium.
AshFraxinusEps t1_j6kyrq0 wrote
> it went the way of the
>
>silphium
I've been thinking about this recently. I doubt it is fully extinct? Surely we could excavate and try to find a seed? This was a common plant all over the med, so why would it be completely gone without a single surviving seed?
ShalmaneserIII t1_j6l1u86 wrote
Even if that seed exists, how will you know what it is?
"Needle in a haystack" is nothing compared to "small seed somewhere in North Africa"
AshFraxinusEps t1_j6mlnfx wrote
Don't we know some major islands which were giant farms for the stuff? And maybe the plant is valuable enough to fund the digs to find the seeds
Redshift2k5 t1_j6l4wu3 wrote
we don't know for sure the identity of the plant. good luck planting every seed from every archeological site in the Roman empire to see which is silphium
AshFraxinusEps t1_j6moq6m wrote
> good luck planting every seed from every archeological site in the Roman empire to see which is silphium
This is more the problem. But could be worth it, bearing in mind how historically important it was. We may have modern equivalents, but I bet that the medicinal value in modern times would be quite high too tbh
Redshift2k5 t1_j6n11p0 wrote
Just planting seeds isn't enough. If it was a hybrid they often don't have viable offspring or the offspring are different from parent hybrid plants.
The last stalk of silphium was given to empower Nero. They knew exactly what the plant was and they knew when it was no longer being cultivated.
johnn48 t1_j6lghf1 wrote
I ran across an interesting article which addressed just that point. A number of hypotheses were presented: 1) that the plant reproduced asexually by spreading its roots, 2) that the climate contributed to its demise, 3) that it grew in a narrow geographical area and was harvested to extinction. These are my narrow take of the article but it’s a definite must read.
AshFraxinusEps t1_j6mznsg wrote
Interesting, and cheers. I did think we'd eventually rediscover it, as it was too widespread to be completely gone (although those are famous last words of conservationists throughout history)
From your points, while the link says it is slow growing, only .1 really would excuse it going completely extinct, as if it reproduced by asexual budding then any buds in the soil would have long-since died. But from the link, it does seem seed-based and therefore it'd be odd to be completely extinct
Cannie_Flippington t1_j6lg07z wrote
There's a theory they might have found it on Crete recently, actually.
The_Middler_is_Here t1_j6m3qzv wrote
I asked this question a while back about the effects. It doesn't answer your question, but it turns out that nobody called it a contraceptive until a hundred years after it went extinct. Assuming it wasn't a totally ineffective treatment, it was, at best, a seriously toxic plant that would hopefully kill the baby before the mom.
DjShoryukenZ t1_j6l2mcz wrote
> I think the Romans might have had a decent seedless apple at one point
I doubt there are seeds of a seedless apple.
AshFraxinusEps t1_j6movii wrote
Not sure who you were replying to, but I never mentioned apples :-P
United-Ad5268 t1_j6lksac wrote
Because that’s the case with the majority of plant and animal life that has existed. Extinct. No trace.
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AshFraxinusEps t1_j6mm18r wrote
Doubt that. Most/all natural plants have seeds and to my knowledge this one was just a default herb-like plant, so should have some seeds
Also the fact that it was cultivated suggests that it had a normal plant lifecycle. We can make seedless fruits but not so much for herbs and such
PoopLogg t1_j6lhhjg wrote
> (This problem is even more pronounced in cherries: it's not the seed that people object to, but rather the stone around the seed.) >
🤣 Yeah because that's definitely not what op was talking about 🙄🤣
Truth-or-Peace t1_j6ltl5b wrote
Well, the distinction is important here. In the fruits we've got seedless varieties of, the fruit forms first and then the seeds form within it; all that has to happen is for that process to be interrupted. But in stone fruits like cherries, the stone forms first and then the fruit forms around it; creating a stoneless stone fruit would require somehow dissolving the stone after it was no longer needed.
PoopLogg t1_j6olzsm wrote
Curious
andrea_ci t1_j6mbkal wrote
> it's still going to have a core
a fruit
Any-Growth8158 t1_j6keodz wrote
Definitely don't want to get rid of the "stone" around the seed in the cherry. It'd only take about three cherries to kill you via cyanide poisoning if it weren't for that "stone's" protection.
Jaimzell t1_j6kgoc5 wrote
If you’re just ironically repeating the common myth, my apologies for missing it. But 3 cherries are not enough to kill you via cyanide poisoning.
C4-BlueCat t1_j6kib73 wrote
3-4 of Morello(?) cherries, 7-9 of normal ones according to healthline
KermitingMurder t1_j6kjcfv wrote
3-4 yew berries (which are similar looking to cherries and also have a stone in the centre) is enough to kill you if you eat the stone in the centre. They taste great but if you swallow even one of those stones you should take a trip to the hospital and I wouldn't eat too many just in case, even if you are careful about the stones the rest of the tree is also toxic so probably best not to eat too many.
CutAtBris t1_j6kt7jq wrote
I'll keep that in mind next time I'm out Yew berry scavenging!
popeyegui t1_j6k0q5k wrote
Stone fruit, like cherries, would have nothing to maintain the shape and firmness of the fruit, so a seedless variant would likely not survive to be propagated.
As for apples, I’m sure that if a seedless variant were to appear, it would be propogated
Vroomped t1_j6kdzbl wrote
The fruit would go somewhere but I doubt the plant will reseed.
Twin_Spoons t1_j6jzpi8 wrote
It's very difficult to cultivate a seedless fruit. Even if by magic you could acquire a bushel of seedless apples... how to you make more? Plant the seeds?
The (relatively small, actually) number of seedless fruits thus require some genetic and/or agricultural trickery to create. Seedless oranges come from grafting branches from one solitary mutant orange tree onto donor trees that would otherwise grow seeded oranges. Seedless watermelon are grown by cross-breeding two strains that are sterile when combined.
engin__r t1_j6k11wm wrote
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
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
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
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
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
I thought this was the case for all fruit that grows on trees.
Drink_Covfefe t1_j6k9aav wrote
Apple varieties are nearly 100% clones, we dont ever grow orchards from seed. They clone the apples trees from cuttings and grafts.
We can also do this super easily with oranges. Say you have a really nice seedless orange, you just need to cut off a growth bud and allow it to set root.
Apple breeding sometimes requires seeds. There are ways that you can breed plants without seeds using tissue culture techniques that revert adult cells into embryonic plant cells.
ViscountBurrito t1_j6kzxm4 wrote
We need a new folk hero. Johnny Appleclone or Johnny Applegraft?
LuciferandSonsPLLC t1_j6ks37y wrote
What are seeds? They are the babies of the plant.
What is fruit? It's how the plant disperses its seeds.
What is a seedless fruit plant? Sterile. It can't distribute its babies.
How do you make more seedless fruit plants? You clone them.
What is the disadvantage of clones? They don't change.
What happens to plants that don't change? Something that does change evolves to exploit them.
Yes, all naval orange plants are clones.
amberwench t1_j6kq61r wrote
In an apple, making it seedless wouldn't change the overall shape much- the different texture that signifies the core would still be there- and people have been trained to not eat the 'core'. In cherries, it's already a expensive to pick such small fruits, removing the stone would make them even smaller, increasing the cost to harvest.
I adore UFO's (stoneless peaches) and would absolutely love to have a stoneless cherry tree in my yard! Not commercially viable but a fun oddball plant for gardeners.
Ausmith1 t1_j6ktek9 wrote
I was reading recently about a company that is working on a seedless cherry developed via CRISPR.
https://www.fooddive.com/news/a-pitless-cherry-pairwise-uses-crispr-to-change-produce-dna/584743/
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Cannie_Flippington t1_j6lh3p4 wrote
I don't think there are any stone fruit that have seedless varieties. Cherry, avocado, peach, etc. Seedless watermelon they create a hybrid of two different watermelon. Like a mule, these hybrids are sterile and only have malformed seeds if any. Pluots are a hybrid and you'll notice that they still have a stone... but sometimes it's only half there or not properly formed. Even seedless oranges can have the odd seed. How they make something seedless depends on how the fruit reproduces and sometimes sterility doesn't yield the desired results if creating sterile fruit is even a realistic process.
Bananas aren't seedless, nor strawberries (I know they're not actually the seeds), nor raspberries... most berries if not all don't have seedless varieties. Some fruit has seedless varieties but the vast majority of the fruit we cultivate isn't seedless.
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Kempeth t1_j6mb8c5 wrote
In grapes, mandarins and watermelons there's not much you can eat from the fruit where you're sure to not get any seeds. So getting rid of the seeds is a big improvement.
With apples, most of the fruit is never going to have a seed and you can just munch carefree until you get to the core. Same with other types of melons that have their seeds all in the middle. It's so easy to scoop them out that developing seedless varieties isn't worth it.
Developing new apple varieties is also a slow process. It takes up to 8 years for an apple tree to bear first fruit so you can find out if whatever you've created tastes any good.
There are also a variety of ways that seedless fruits are created. With grapes they manipulate the plant into making a fruit without seeds but those tend to lack the hormone needed to make the fruit grow to its normal size. Applied to apples you might get seedless apples but only of the size of apricots or so. And again, you have to wait up to 8 years to find out.
With melons they have two fields of different "parent" melons that when you put the pollen of one type on the flowers of the other the resulting fruit can't make seeds. Which is a tricky but doable for large fruits like watermelons. Doing that for a whole apple tree is much more effort (if that's the road that would need to be taken).
TLDR: It's a LOT of work for an uncertain amount of benefit.
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HandsOnGeek t1_j6kp2it wrote
The seeds of canned cherries have been mechanically removed prior to being canned. Every one of those cherries grew with a seed in the middle of it originally.
The bananas we eat are technically seedless. We clone the plants to make more.
explainlikeimfive-ModTeam t1_j6kwyxy wrote
Do not evade the automod.
Spiritual_Jaguar4685 t1_j6k0ppr wrote
So fun fact, they did just discover a variety of seedless apples very recently. Not sure if they are marketable, but it's a "thing".
The difference here is some fruit can do something called "parthenocarpy", it basically means the plant will produce flowers that aren't fertilized and will still grow into fruit. The resulting fruit, since it wasn't fertilized, will lack the reproductive seeds.
It turns out some plants do this and those are our seedless fruits mostly.
Some plants, like apple trees, don't do this, so we don't get seedless apples.