this post was submitted on 01 Oct 2023
620 points (97.4% liked)

Memes

45649 readers
1501 users here now

Rules:

  1. Be civil and nice.
  2. Try not to excessively repost, as a rule of thumb, wait at least 2 months to do it if you have to.

founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
 
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] ch00f@lemmy.world 7 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Well the other bit about apple trees is that they exhibit extreme heterozygosity which means they need the genes of two trees to be combined to make viable seeds, and the genes of their offspring are chosen randomly.

So they're like people, the kids might exhibit traits of both parents, but they're not clones. Typically if you plant apple seeds, if they are fertile and sprout, the offspring will make apples that are different from both parents. In most cases, these apples aren't desirable, as there are only a few dozen apple varieties on the market against untold millions of possibilities.