I have never had a biology class but would love to know why say Nickajack apple reportedly comes true to seed. There are a few other apples that do the same but they are very, very rare.
Probably extinct. I’d be pretty skeptical. The only fruit tree I know of where that’s possible is some citrus.
Maybe some are relatively true to type, but identical…??
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In order for a plant to reproduce true from seed it needs to have 2 sets of the same chromosome (homozygous), and pollinate itself so there are no new combinations. They are basically inbred aka self pollinated over several generations of selections.
Most apples need cross pollination from what I understand and always have 2 different sets of chromosomes, so seedlings will normally show variation (possibly 4 different combinations for each gene).
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Hambone,
I agree with all of what’s been said already but some such as wolf river may be fairly true to type Breeding New Varieties of Fruit. Why do some apples look like their parents? There are dominant genes even amongst diploids that make them appear true to type. Many apple breeders know this information and breed and cross certain apples for those reasons. Not every apple will be true to type but as big horse creek farms says about wolf river " An interesting thing about Wolf River is its occasional ability to reproduce itself true-to-variety from seed. This is a very uncommon trait as nearly all apple varieties are self-unfruitful; i.e., they are unable to self-pollinate to produce apples on their own. In order to produce fruit, their blossoms must be fertilized with the pollen of another separate variety. All the apples produced by the “mother tree” as a result of this cross-pollination will always be the same but the seeds of these fruits will be a genetic cross of both parent trees, the mother tree and the pollen-donating tree. These “hybrid” apple seeds are thus unable to grow into trees identical to the original mother tree, except in rare cases like Wolf River." - Wolf River Story. Fuji is an apple with highly dominant genes so many of its second and even third generation are good keepers with sweet flavor http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.474.116&rep=rep1&type=pdf.
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I don’t understand the mechanism, but there are a few apple varieties that are said to produce offspring that is reliably similar to the parent. Fameuse is one of these. Antonovka is another.
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The answer can be seen on the brainly site as an example “An apple plant has two dominant alleles for red apples, RR. If it is crossed with another plant that has recessive genes for green apples, rr, which percentage of the offspring will have red apples, assuming random chromosome segregation?”
Homozygous dominant x Homozygous recessive = Heterozygous dominant. In other words 100% of all the apples are Rr. That will not be the case in the next generation https://www.stat.washington.edu/thompson/Genetics/1.3_genotypes.html in the case of the wolf river apple those genes will show up again later. See this link What is the difference between homozygous and heterozygous?. As you can see its a matter of time and some genes show back up which will once again make an apple that looks just like ( more or less) the original apple. The wolf river is a very rare situation and not every apple will look like the parent. Some people might cross wickson or another highly flavorful apple with wolf river knowing the results would be some very large apples. Etter was an apple breeder who bred diverse combinations such as that The Ettersburg Apple Legacies.
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I’ve read that Gravenstein is also fairly “true to seed” and that there are thousands of seedlings in CA and Oregon (as I recall) that are virtually indistinguishable from the clone growing as wild trees. I’m pretty sure the source was reasonably reliable but I’ve never confirmed it nor seen such a tree when in CA.
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That’s a great question, and probably pretty well answered by now. Along the same lines is this question:
"What causes sports, and why do some apples seem more prone to throwing off sports?
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Interestingly the USDA has multiple accessions of Antonovka in its collection; each differing in a range of traits including differences in vigor. I believe Antonovka is just a landrace and only comes true to the extent that its seedlings are of the same general type of this variable landrace. There would be no reason to expect them to grow “true” if they were pollinated by non Antonovka types.
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Wanted to mention A New Phase for Big Horse Creek Farm is now for the most part selling scions only. Cannot say enough about the importance of learning to graft. These varities Master Variety List are only available in some cases to those who can graft.
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I’ve always considered self fertility to being the most conducive element to close similarity of seedlings to parent tree. Some apples are self fertile. https://www.orangepippintrees.com/search.aspx?ps=34
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