3 ms·
from one seed? So a disease could wipe it all out.
by lawlessone 7y ago
from one seed? So a disease could wipe it all out.
- aequitas 7y agoA disease could even wipe out a population from a wide variety of ancestors. The thing that matters if any of the ancestors has encountered a type of this disease before and has found a way to be resilient for it (and pass it on into its genes).
- Retric 7y agoGenetic diversity direcrly correlated with better odds that a subset of the population will be resistant to the disease. The subset of people with increased HIV resistance for example did not develop the trait in response to HIV, they where lucky enough to have it before the disease showed up.
- Hitton 7y agoI thought the same. Look at Banana Industry the disease first wiped Gros Michel and now seriously threatens Cavendish. That wouldn't be such problem if only one cultivar wasn't so widespread.
- ceejayoz 7y agoWell, bananas are worse off, as they're all clones. Pistachios may have shared ancestry, but there'll be at least some genetic diversity in the crop now (as well as the originals back in Iran etc.).
- snarf21 7y agoYeah, it is super interesting to read about. Our food monoculture is going to be a huge problem for us in the future. https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-35131751 https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-35131751
- Jedd 7y ago> from one seed? So a disease could wipe it all out. It depends what you mean by 'wipe it all out' There are plenty of pistachio varieties, grown all over the planet, so the disease would need to spread far and wide -- but this is what many country's border controls are specifically designed to stop. There's about 30 named fruiting pistachio varieties (compare ~3,000 apple, or ~500 edible banana) so we're at some greater risk, but if you were to ask a random sample of consumers to identify the different pistachio varieties by sight/taste I expect you'd find most would struggle.