5 ms·

Putting aside the hysteria of the impending extinction of the Cavendish (which so far seems to be at a stalemate), this situation is not unique to bananas. Pre

Putting aside the hysteria of the impending extinction of the Cavendish (which so far seems to be at a stalemate), this situation is not unique to bananas. Pretty much all fruit trees used in agriculture are produced by cloning; generally speaking producing excess fruit is not a productive mutation for a plant, especially when the fruit is high calorie. So to a good approximation, fruit trees grown from seed are extremely unlikely to bear enough fruit to be useful. Sweet bananas are the example used here, but pretty much all fruit trees share this. There's essentially one (two if you count Dwarf Cavendish) sweet banana -- all sweet bananas you find in a store will be clones of one of those two. Same for avocados -- exactly two genetically identical sources of avocados (at commercial scale; a wild avocado tree will produce some small number of avocados every couple of years). Apples have a much greater variety of cultivars, but every Red Delicious you eat comes from a tree that is a genetic clone of all the others. There's a danger from monocultures in agriculture in general, but at least for plants grown from seed, there's some natural genetic variety that might yield resistance from large-scale blights. Fruit trees are much more vulnerable to this sort of problem.

scythe 10y ago
There are apparently some breeding strategies used with the Cavendish: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Noelani_Van_den_Berg/publication/44635121_Tolerance_in_banana_to_Fusarium_wilt_is_associated_with_early_up-regulation_of_cell_wall-strengthening_genes_in_the_roots/links/540619c80cf2bba34c1e3e28/Tolerance-in-banana-to-Fusarium-wilt-is-associated-with-early-up-regulation-of-cell-wall-strengthening-genes-in-the-roots.pdf https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Noelani_Van_den_Berg/pu...
username223 10y ago
> Pretty much all fruit trees used in agriculture are produced by cloning I was surprised some years ago when I learned that most apple trees are grafts: you take a branch from a tree with apples you like, attach it to a shoot of some other apple tree, and it will produce the apples you like. A neighbor's tree had burned down, and he had no idea what sort of apples the shoots sprouting from the stump would produce.
- pfooti 10y ago
  Yah, the problem is that if you plant a seed you often get a wild type apple with a totally random flavor profile (self-pollination within a particular tree won't produce apple trees with fruit that are identical to their parent).
  - DashRattlesnake 10y ago
    > the problem is that if you plant a seed you often get a wild type apple with a totally random flavor profile IIRC, it's even worse than that. You will almost always get a wild-type apple with an often inedible flavor profile or texture. The orchards they use to develop new apple varieties have thousands of trees, and might not even produce a single new marketable type.
- nikcub 10y ago
  Planet Money had a great episode on a farmer who created a new type of apple: http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2015/05/27/410085320/episode-627-the-miracle-apple http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2015/05/27/410085320/episo...
  - username223 10y ago
    Honeycrisp, right? It has been awhile since I listened to it, but IIRC the interesting part was the creator's efforts to protect the apple's flavor by trademarking the name. Most new varieties are bred for looks, yield, and shelf life at the expense of taste. (Remember when Fujis were good?)
  - username223 10y ago
    I just re-listened to it, and it reminded me that Opals are excellent. If you can find them, i.e. you live in Washington, try them. They look like some of the worst apples (golden delicious), but they're some of the best.
- PeterisP 10y ago
  What's even more surprising is that this has been that way for more than 3000 years, the technique of grafting apples is literally prehistoric. I believe the reason for this is that taste and quality of fruit is quite random in pollinated seeds, seeds from a single tree will bear apples quite distinct from what the "parent" had, so if you want predictable, good fruit you need to clone the upper part by grafting.
snovv_crash 10y ago
I have to disagree with you on the avocados. In certain climates (the KZN region of South Africa for instance) they grow wild and produce prodigious quantities of fruits. Most of them don't get harvested and end up on the ground, at least until the dogs find them. A similar thing happens with guavas, to the point that they have been classified as an invasive alien species. They often grow under bridges, apparently spread primarily by homeless people eating the wild fruits.

scythe 10y ago

There are apparently some breeding strategies used with the Cavendish: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Noelani_Van_den_Berg/publication/44635121_Tolerance_in_banana_to_Fusarium_wilt_is_associated_with_early_up-regulation_of_cell_wall-strengthening_genes_in_the_roots/links/540619c80cf2bba34c1e3e28/Tolerance-in-banana-to-Fusarium-wilt-is-associated-with-early-up-regulation-of-cell-wall-strengthening-genes-in-the-roots.pdf https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Noelani_Van_den_Berg/pu...

username223 10y ago

> Pretty much all fruit trees used in agriculture are produced by cloning I was surprised some years ago when I learned that most apple trees are grafts: you take a branch from a tree with apples you like, attach it to a shoot of some other apple tree, and it will produce the apples you like. A neighbor's tree had burned down, and he had no idea what sort of apples the shoots sprouting from the stump would produce.

pfooti 10y ago
Yah, the problem is that if you plant a seed you often get a wild type apple with a totally random flavor profile (self-pollination within a particular tree won't produce apple trees with fruit that are identical to their parent).
- DashRattlesnake 10y ago
  > the problem is that if you plant a seed you often get a wild type apple with a totally random flavor profile IIRC, it's even worse than that. You will almost always get a wild-type apple with an often inedible flavor profile or texture. The orchards they use to develop new apple varieties have thousands of trees, and might not even produce a single new marketable type.
nikcub 10y ago
Planet Money had a great episode on a farmer who created a new type of apple: http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2015/05/27/410085320/episode-627-the-miracle-apple http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2015/05/27/410085320/episo...
- username223 10y ago
  Honeycrisp, right? It has been awhile since I listened to it, but IIRC the interesting part was the creator's efforts to protect the apple's flavor by trademarking the name. Most new varieties are bred for looks, yield, and shelf life at the expense of taste. (Remember when Fujis were good?)
- username223 10y ago
  I just re-listened to it, and it reminded me that Opals are excellent. If you can find them, i.e. you live in Washington, try them. They look like some of the worst apples (golden delicious), but they're some of the best.
PeterisP 10y ago
What's even more surprising is that this has been that way for more than 3000 years, the technique of grafting apples is literally prehistoric. I believe the reason for this is that taste and quality of fruit is quite random in pollinated seeds, seeds from a single tree will bear apples quite distinct from what the "parent" had, so if you want predictable, good fruit you need to clone the upper part by grafting.

snovv_crash 10y ago

I have to disagree with you on the avocados. In certain climates (the KZN region of South Africa for instance) they grow wild and produce prodigious quantities of fruits. Most of them don't get harvested and end up on the ground, at least until the dogs find them. A similar thing happens with guavas, to the point that they have been classified as an invasive alien species. They often grow under bridges, apparently spread primarily by homeless people eating the wild fruits.