posted 13 years ago
Many types of plants (as well as human beings) do not 'breed true' - the offspring are not exactly like their parents for generation after generation, each individual can have unique characteristics. This is both good and bad.
In terms of apples, the original apple was small and sour. It took many generations of selection to get the fruit to be large and sweet and have the texture that makes it most appreciated by humans. We did 'breed the wild' out of many fruits and vegetables in the sense that we chose plants with larger, tastier edible parts. And as a side effect, these plants may lack the things that protect from pests in the field (thorns, stiff hairs, bitter alkaloids, high levels of acidity, anti-nutritional factors, etc). In a world without humans, the braeburn apple and the cocker spaniel dog would not exist.
You can plant apple seeds, but the children are not exactly like the parents. Without some program to select and breed apples, they would revert to the wild form - after a few generations, the plants would have smaller, sour fruit - many of the first generation of wild would be noticeably different, after a few generations, most apple trees would be like crab apples. That might be ok for people that wanted to press cider, but not so much for having fruit to eat out of hand.