I listened to a podcast recently about potatoes. The ones in Europe are all one species. They can’t grow variants from seeds because they have 4 chromosomes which means growing from seeds doesn’t give the same variant. They are basically clones. If a variant is lost it cannot be brought back, it’s gone for good.
One of the coolest thing about apples imo. All those varieties you love like granny Smith are literally just the same tree grafted over and over again.
I listened to a podcast recently about potatoes. The ones in Europe are all one species. They can’t grow variants from seeds because they have 4 chromosomes which means growing from seeds doesn’t give the same variant. They are basically clones. If a variant is lost it cannot be brought back, it’s gone for good.
I never knew how interesting potatoes are!
Lots of crops are like this, like apples! It’s called extreme heterozygosity.
That’s the big word I couldn’t remember. I didn’t know apples were the same but that really makes sense now.
One of the coolest thing about apples imo. All those varieties you love like granny Smith are literally just the same tree grafted over and over again.