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Why does being grown from cuttings and grafts make them a poor choice to look at? Wouldn't there be local varieties with different flavors that people would wan

Why does being grown from cuttings and grafts make them a poor choice to look at? Wouldn't there be local varieties with different flavors that people would want to consume. You can cut and graft those just the same? It seems they optimized for the varieties that are easier to ship and preserve.

bsder 3y ago
Why would you assume that France has a diversity of apples? (they may--but I wouldn't automatically expect it) Johnny Appleseed is American. The US has a huge diversity of apple trees based on locality. However, like so many things, said diversity is seasonal. There is a good reason for pressing apple cider--you need to do something with the enormous number of apples you couldn't eat directly. If you want apples out of season, you're only going to see the mass-manufactured ones.
- nasmorn 3y ago
  Very true. In Austria you can still get a lot of heritage apples but mostly in the fall. Some varieties don’t keep well at all.
- noSyncCloud 3y ago
  What does Jonny Appleseed have to do with anything? Apples are native to central Asia, not the Americas. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple?wprov=sfla1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple?wprov=sfla1
  - bsder 3y ago
    The point is that Johnny Appleseed actively spread apple cultivars over a very wide geographic area (Pennsylvania, Ohio, Illinois, Indiana, and parts of West Virgina and Ontario). Since these cultivars were no longer connected by breeding, they changed characteristics over several centuries giving rise to an absolutely enormous diversity of local apple types in the US--especially since apple trees from seed are kinda unstable genetically.
  - WrongAssumption 3y ago
    How is where they are native to relevant prevalence and diversity?
zer00eyz 3y ago
For the same reason we have 1 banana and mostly only see hass avocados. IF you take the seeds of a tomato you will get a mostly decent tomato out of it. IF you take the seeds of an apple or a haas avocado you will likely get something that looks nothing like its parent. Unlike tomatoes it takes a LONG time to grow a tree, so if you want an avocado or apple orchard your going to use grafts to make sure you get the best chance of having a good product in 5 or 10 years... The economics of commonality should be readily apparent... pick something that you know works for your multi year bet to pay off sounds like a good plan. Avocados are also interesting because we DO get other varieties due to how it reproduces (you need plants of both sexes). IM fairly sure that apples do not have this issue so farms are monocultures. Add on to that the fact that the varieties we see are designed to be kept long enough to have a birthday and this is what you get.
- fsckboy 3y ago
  apples themselves, all on their own, don't "breed true". If you take seeds from an apple from a tree that you love and plant them, you will not get a tree that produces fruit that tastes the same. The majority of apples "born" are sour. When a tasty apple tree is grown, it's a small miracle, and cuttings are propagated from it because it's the only way to produce more apples that are good. Johnny Appleseed walking through colonial American planting apple trees? he was a hippy promoting more fermentation of alcoholic apple cider, for which sour apples work just fine. virtually all French wine grapes, btw, are grown from cuttings grafted onto American root stocks because the native roots were not resistant to the invasive Phylloxera fly https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phylloxera https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phylloxera it is because of grafting that we have variety in these cases.

bsder 3y ago

Why would you assume that France has a diversity of apples? (they may--but I wouldn't automatically expect it) Johnny Appleseed is American. The US has a huge diversity of apple trees based on locality. However, like so many things, said diversity is seasonal. There is a good reason for pressing apple cider--you need to do something with the enormous number of apples you couldn't eat directly. If you want apples out of season, you're only going to see the mass-manufactured ones.

nasmorn 3y ago
Very true. In Austria you can still get a lot of heritage apples but mostly in the fall. Some varieties don’t keep well at all.
noSyncCloud 3y ago
What does Jonny Appleseed have to do with anything? Apples are native to central Asia, not the Americas. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple?wprov=sfla1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple?wprov=sfla1
- bsder 3y ago
  The point is that Johnny Appleseed actively spread apple cultivars over a very wide geographic area (Pennsylvania, Ohio, Illinois, Indiana, and parts of West Virgina and Ontario). Since these cultivars were no longer connected by breeding, they changed characteristics over several centuries giving rise to an absolutely enormous diversity of local apple types in the US--especially since apple trees from seed are kinda unstable genetically.
- WrongAssumption 3y ago
  How is where they are native to relevant prevalence and diversity?

zer00eyz 3y ago

For the same reason we have 1 banana and mostly only see hass avocados. IF you take the seeds of a tomato you will get a mostly decent tomato out of it. IF you take the seeds of an apple or a haas avocado you will likely get something that looks nothing like its parent. Unlike tomatoes it takes a LONG time to grow a tree, so if you want an avocado or apple orchard your going to use grafts to make sure you get the best chance of having a good product in 5 or 10 years... The economics of commonality should be readily apparent... pick something that you know works for your multi year bet to pay off sounds like a good plan. Avocados are also interesting because we DO get other varieties due to how it reproduces (you need plants of both sexes). IM fairly sure that apples do not have this issue so farms are monocultures. Add on to that the fact that the varieties we see are designed to be kept long enough to have a birthday and this is what you get.

fsckboy 3y ago
apples themselves, all on their own, don't "breed true". If you take seeds from an apple from a tree that you love and plant them, you will not get a tree that produces fruit that tastes the same. The majority of apples "born" are sour. When a tasty apple tree is grown, it's a small miracle, and cuttings are propagated from it because it's the only way to produce more apples that are good. Johnny Appleseed walking through colonial American planting apple trees? he was a hippy promoting more fermentation of alcoholic apple cider, for which sour apples work just fine. virtually all French wine grapes, btw, are grown from cuttings grafted onto American root stocks because the native roots were not resistant to the invasive Phylloxera fly https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phylloxera https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phylloxera it is because of grafting that we have variety in these cases.