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zippotato t1_j9f0jyb wrote

Reply to comment by [deleted] in TIL that artificial banana flavoring isn't based on a species of banana that got wiped out, but instead uses Isoamyl acetate to replicate the flavor, which is only part of what gives bananas their distinctive taste. by NoLackofEnthusiasm

Gros Michel didn't go extinct. It was just replaced by Cavendish as the dominant cultivar on the market, and is still being produced in smaller scale.

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[deleted] t1_j9f0zb3 wrote

The gros michel is extinct, the few clones still available don’t change that, it is just a matter of time till they meet the fungus which doomed that clone.

Extinct as in not having a sustainqble population nor the ability to reproduce, clones

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zippotato t1_j9f3u51 wrote

I don't quite understand your reasoning here. It's not like there are only a handful of Gros Michel trees still standing in closed government laboratory. Farmers of multiple countries including the United States still grow and sell Gros Michel. It is now produced in smaller scale because preventing Panama disease is not economical enough for large scale farming, not because it is impossible to prevent it from getting hand on every single Gros Michel tree on the planet.

Yes, the tree is reproduced via cloning, but it goes same to Cavendish and you wouldn't say that Cavendish is already extinct.

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[deleted] t1_j9f55j3 wrote

Cloning is not reproducing, that is the whole point and just because some zoos hold a few animals of a species doesn’t mean the species isn’t extinct… do you understand how evolution works, our tinkering is artificial and does not contribute, the plant is extinct

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Koksny t1_j9fna11 wrote

In agriculture we actually reproduce most (almost all) fruiting perennials by cloning, because every and each seed is a bit different, and will grow into its own different species. That's how evolution works, my friend.

This is the difference between cultivation and farming. For cultivation, the plants are grown from seeds into mothers, and we sell the clippings (clones) to farmers, to provide best of species. But when farming, you will not plant an orchard from seeds, instead you wil use clones.

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