Is it me or are there fewer and fewer seeds in supermarket fresh fruit and vege ?

Hello again everyone

I wanted to raise a point i think is going to make people a little annoyed who might be knew to this arena but i think it's one of those brave new world concepts that people need to grasp.

Growing food from the seeds you picked out of your scraps to plant and just "see what comes up" used to be a fun thing i did as a kid.
It either turned out great or it was a horrible mess. But you could get 8 or 9 seeds out of an apple or a pear and plant it and have a bit of fun learning about the effects of cross pollination and genetics and hormone displacement.

Today, bought some fruit from the store; just because its winter and there's nothing on the trees right now. Open up my first apple... wait a minute why is there only 1 seed in this thing.
Another apple, wait there is 2 in this one.

Ohh boy.

Next, time to cook dinner. Lets see what this pumpkin has in it. Cut it open, there is maybe a tablespoon of the tiniest pumpkin seeds i have ever seen in it, and the flesh was rock solid except for the very tiny cup rim sized middle, While that might be great for cost to food ratio; it got the old brain rattling.

Now, it has been some years since i did a supermarket shop like this, mostly because we got hit by floods in 2023 and i've since moved off the block i was on because it just wasn't worth the cheapness of it to be in a flood plane.

So now my question is, when exactly did they start breeding seeds out of food ?
When did we collectively agree it was necessary to do it for our enjoyment of said food ?

From where i sit, it was the one last remaining thing that made it believable that this was food !

This is turning into the great cavendish banana blight disaster all over again.

Everyone growing the same thing, and when a disease wipes it all out we (as a species, not as preppers or permaculture gardeners) don't have enough random diversity to fall back on because no one can just pop open an apple and grab the last remaining seeds in hope of regrowing anything because they sucked all the reproductive life out of everything and we wiped out all the other varieties in favor of shelf life and visuals.

Have we collectively gone mad ?

Yes! Some things are worse than others, and picked too early to maximise shelf life.  It's not just supermarket stuff either.  I bought broccolini (sprouting broccoli) seedlings.  Great, grew beautifully and went to seed on the bits I'd missed.  Planted the seeds - they grew, didn't do the 'flower' bits and the hares got through the fence (babies I think) and scoffed all the leaves. So no repeat crop for me   No success with pumpkin seeds either . . .and don't get me started on those tasteless orange cardboard tomatoes  (we're in a drought at the moment so had to buy 'em).  Thanks for the opportunity for a short rant.

Jill Dyer wrote:Yes! Some things are worse than others, and picked too early to maximise shelf life.  It's not just supermarket stuff either.  I bought broccolini (sprouting broccoli) seedlings.  Great, grew beautifully and went to seed on the bits I'd missed.  Planted the seeds - they grew, didn't do the 'flower' bits and the hares got through the fence (babies I think) and scoffed all the leaves. So no repeat crop for me   No success with pumpkin seeds either . . .and don't get me started on those tasteless orange cardboard tomatoes  (we're in a drought at the moment so had to buy 'em).  Thanks for the opportunity for a short rant.

No no, it's reassuring to know i am not the only one who has noticed sterility in seeds is a big thing now from store bought; I just wanted to get a few seeds in since every store seems to be scant on stock nowadays and i wanted to play around with some new cross pollination techniques and graft / over graft techniques i read about and so i wanted some throw away plants to play with. A bag of apples yeilded like 24 or 25 seeds total. I was shocked to say the least. I was expecting like 100 at least from a bag of 20 odd apples. I put them in pots in the fridge, and a week later still not seeing any signs of sprouting even though i did them at the same time as apples i picked from the garden and those have already set roots.

Little ... bit ... concerning.

I don't want to think about what is going to happen with the pumpkin, i had a butternut that i took seed from; got what looks like zucchini/courgette in the bed from those seeds. They are yellow and very skinny and growing on the main plant stem. Pretty sure they aren't the same genus. Shouldn't be possible. Definitely didn't buy zucchini by accident. Don't want to know how it happened. Already in the process of ripping out the rest of the plants as they come up (thankfully winter just started here so hopefully they all get killed off by the frost if i miss any).

Going to leave one just to see what happens, but if that's the case, considering not using the supermarket as an emergency shop destination when i run out of stuff. More canning for me !

Marshall Ashworth wrote:Growing food from the seeds you picked out of your scraps to plant and just "see what comes up" used to be a fun thing i did as a kid.
It either turned out great or it was a horrible mess. But you could get 8 or 9 seeds out of an apple or a pear and plant it and have a bit of fun learning about the effects of cross pollination and genetics and hormone displacement.

Can you give us more information about the apple and pear seeds you planted? Growing them to a flowering stage is a long term commitment. Any information you could give might be helpful to other growers.

Douglas Alpenstock wrote:

Marshall Ashworth wrote:Growing food from the seeds you picked out of your scraps to plant and just "see what comes up" used to be a fun thing i did as a kid.
It either turned out great or it was a horrible mess. But you could get 8 or 9 seeds out of an apple or a pear and plant it and have a bit of fun learning about the effects of cross pollination and genetics and hormone displacement.

Can you give us more information about the apple and pear seeds you planted? Growing them to a flowering stage is a long term commitment. Any information you could give might be helpful to other growers.

Sure;

Lets start with why i am concerned about what is happening in the pots i have in the fridge. Firstly lets talk about why they are in the fridge in the first place. This is called cold stratification, apples need a certain amount of chill time in order to sprout (anywhere between 300 and 2000 chill hours) of dormancy for the trees. In the seed they too need a certain amount of chill hours in order to sprout successfully in the ground (to break the outer casing).

This is also the case with stone fruit, pears, quinces, etc.

Now the sticky part. For temperate climates; no biggie. Put it outside in winter and it will "just happen". However in a sub tropical zone like ours where the country is half in temperate and half in sub tropical, the seed and trees can sometimes get confused as to whether it is winter or not. This is called chill stall. It basically "resets" the tree hormones back into early dormancy phases; in effect resetting the chill hour counter.

By refrigerating the seed, in my climate; i eliminate the chances of us getting down to below 32f or 0c and then during the daytime heating (40 - 59f / 4 - 15c) that resets the timer and the seed just rots in place because its constantly trying to sprout.

So by using my own apples from my orchard, and planting them from fruit at the same time i am doing the store bought fruit, i know the seeds have same collection date and roughly the same collection time.
In order for my seeds from my fruit to be sprouting, while the store seeds have not; either means the seeds are sterile, meaning some sort of genetic modification (illegal here atm) or the fruit was irradiated.

Another potential is that, my trees have already acclimatized to my site and needed fewer chilling hours, I'll keep the store bought fruit seed in the fridge for the full 2000 hours and see what happens, if nothing comes up then it's time to source from another store.

Now onto why we're even doing this.

So the idea behind this particular project isn't to grow the seeds to full fruiting stage; it is actually to grow the seedlings out to become scion wood for experiments in hetero-grafting; more specifically to start with over-grafting. In over grafting.

When you buy a tree from a nursery, they are typically grafted to a root stock, a small piece off wood (usually pencil length) of wood from a "good" fruiting tree gets grafted onto the root stock (the roots of the new tree). It is taped and healed in place, before the tape is removed (usually several months later). At which point the tree heals and calluses creating one unified new "good" fruit tree.

The idea with over-grafting, is we take our seed grown apple, allow it to grow to knee height; and at this point, we pull the seedling and cut the wood from this as our new scion, which i will call the "bad" scion going forward. The "bad" scion (which could potentially grow good fruit, we just won't know for 4-10 years unless we graft), can then be grafted onto the "good" scion. In theory from my research, what should at that point happen, is the DNA of all 3 trees becomes incorporated into the seed of the new "bad" scion tree that sprouts.

In this way, the tree graft cuts our fruiting time from 4-10 years, to between 2 and 4 years.

We can then cross pollinate that resulting tree with others in the orchard to give us a new cultivar or variety that has nothing in common with any of the aforementioned trees. The seed from that can then be grown into a new seedling and we can graft this time directly onto a root stock (instead of requiring a "good" scion in between).

In this way, once again the tree graft cuts our fruiting time from 4-10 years, to between 2 and 4 years.

Meaning instead of taking 20 years to get a new variety of fruit tree, we may be able to cut that to maximum 8 years.

----

now back to why i wanted seed from store bought apples. In my orchard setup, i have apples, sure. But i grow in a poly-culture system. My apples are guaranteed to be a cross between many different varieties since i don't grow an orchard of just braeburn or just royal gala. Where as a commercial orchard, sure they might have 3 or 4 varieties, but there are so many of the same variety surrounding each other that the likelihood of cross pollination with another variety is slim unless i happen to hit an apple from a tree at the median between two varieties.


This is really a brief overview of the idea. It gives you a frame of reference at least to the process at its basics.

Now onto the elephant in the room, that method we have just discussed is called homo-grafting or homogeneous grafting.

Hetero-grafting is where the two species of trees are from either different genus or not of the same species. This would be for example grafting an orange tree to an apple tree. It sounds stupid because that would never work, but it turns out it doesn't need to fruit. We're taking the DNA from one plant, and trying to make the parent tree take on the DNA to attain certain traits. So for example we could put kiwi on a grapevine to try to get fuzzy grapes. The orange on the apple might be to give the fruit an orange skin, or to make the fruit more tart etc.

When the seed from the resulting fruit is then collected and homo-grafted onto rootstock we then see if those traits have stuck, rinse repeat.

See :
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3628911/



[EDIT: Temperatures in Fahrenheit, added note about acclimatizing as an aside to potential causes for early sprouting]

Is it possible that growers are developing more seedless fruits?  

I have read that this can be done, naturally in some varieties, and can also be achieved through selective breeding or genetic modification.

I feel a lot of consumer would be happy to find seedless fruits.  Why spit out watermelon seeds if a seedless variety exists?

Getting free seeds at the grocery store versus buying a packet of seeds?

I am not concerned because I can always buy seeds ...

Yep. It's a thing.

Noticed it with the pears, very few seeds generally. Also, all the supermarket grapes are now seedless. Wonder if they are triploids or something like that?

When I was a kid, the grapes mostly had seeds. My brother is the proud owner of a grapevine he grew from supermarket grape seeds back then, and kept as a houseplant ever since. He rooted some cuttings for us last time he pruned the thing, so we'll try it outside. The chance that it survives our climate is probably vanishingly small, but we'll try nonetheless.

Anne Miller wrote:Is it possible that growers are developing more seedless fruits?  

I have read that this can be done, naturally in some varieties, and can also be achieved through selective breeding or genetic modification.

I feel a lot of consumer would be happy to find seedless fruits.  Why spit out watermelon seeds if a seedless variety exists?

Getting free seeds at the grocery store versus buying a packet of seeds?

I am not concerned because I can always buy seeds ...

More to the speed of the seed loss that i am referring to. Breeding to select for fewer seeds takes a long time usually, it would be gradual; I've bought fruit from the store a lot more in the last decade than i would really like, my trees are fairly young still. We had a frost one year and the fruit buds got damaged and fell off for example. Where I am in Northland is borderline subtropical, we've had a lot of cyclones here since 2020 and the fruit gets blown off before it develops, trees get knocked over.

It's not like i haven't bought fruit from the store in decades; I do shop to fill the gaps. This has more been two years ago i bought specifically apples and pears and they still had 5 or 6 seeds in each fruit.
Its the speed of the change that i am referring to.

As for buying packet seeds from the store instead of fruit; you can't buy apple / fruit tree seeds here from any retailer. I'm not going to say it's impossible to find *some* fruit like raspberry seeds, all the subtropical seeds like guava etc you can get. But specifically the stuff you can buy in the supermarket doesn't seem to have a seed packet supplier for those things. Vegetables sure, can still get seed packets for those.

More that if i was to buy a pumpkin, why buy a packet of seeds for it when the seeds are right there ?

I'm not far off having to move here up a hill since where we are now; we keep getting hit by floods in the plains. The stream a few houses ahead of us keeps breaking its banks and becoming a river. We didn't get too badly hit the last time but it was enough to need to rip up the carpet in the house and put down vinyl instead.

The town is build in the valley and keeps getting battered so we are looking at moving somewhere new. At that point I would have a scullery just for storing roots and pumpkins. Houses here don't have basements and root cellars so if i want one i have to add it when i build a house which is the next adventure

Right now we have a two door pantry and no space to store loads of produce that we grow. I am mostly just throwing it to the pigs when we get overflow from canning. Was close to 500 pounds last month they got as surplus.

Eino Kenttä wrote:Yep. It's a thing.

Noticed it with the pears, very few seeds generally. Also, all the supermarket grapes are now seedless. Wonder if they are triploids or something like that?

When I was a kid, the grapes mostly had seeds. My brother is the proud owner of a grapevine he grew from supermarket grape seeds back then, and kept as a houseplant ever since. He rooted some cuttings for us last time he pruned the thing, so we'll try it outside. The chance that it survives our climate is probably vanishingly small, but we'll try nonetheless.

Would be a good idea to at least have something that has seeds you can use as root stock just in case we can no longer get them

I will also say this for you lucky American

All stores in New Zealand get their pineapples without the greens attached. Because we import them, from Australia; and it's easier to transport without the top.

So i gather seed from pineapples and got a few tops from a farmer who was growing queen pineapples from the 60s when they used to import them with the tops

It is not impossible to find sources for seeds and plants sure; if you have the community connections to get the stuff. Fewer and fewer farmers around. How long until the seed packet companies stop making their product because there are fewer and fewer gardeners ?

Don't rely on what's comfortable now; because it might not be around forever i guess was the point of this post.

Just some info from overlord google
https://www.google.com/search?q=how+long++does+it+take+to+breed+for+seedless+fruit


Breeding for seedless fruit can take a significant amount of time, potentially decades, especially when involving triploidy or other complex breeding methods. For example, developing tetraploid lines for seedless watermelon production may take around 10 years before enough seed is produced for commercial triploid hybrid production. Other methods, like inducing parthenocarpy, can be more time-consuming or even impossible if suitable parental genetic resources are lacking.
Here's a more detailed look at the process:
1. Triploidy:

   Involves crossing diploid and tetraploid plants to produce triploid offspring.

Triploids are often sterile and cannot produce seeds, resulting in seedless fruit.
Developing tetraploid lines can take a considerable amount of time (e.g., 10 years for seedless watermelon).

2. Parthenocarpy:

   This involves inducing fruit development without fertilization, leading to seedless fruit.

Methods include hormonal treatments, fostering self-incompatibility, or genetic engineering.
Can be time-consuming, especially when relying on natural genetic mutations or specific parental lines.

3. Stenospermocarpy:

   This involves pollination triggering fruit development, but ovules or embryos abort before seed maturation.

No widely recognized methods for inducing stenospermocarpy have been identified yet.

4. Selection and Propogation:

   Once a seedless fruit-producing plant is identified, it needs to be propagated vegetatively (e.g., grafting, cuttings) to ensure the characteristic is maintained in subsequent generations.
   This process can also take time, especially if the plant is not readily propagated by cuttings or requires grafting techniques.

Regarding seeds, I think it's a valid observation.

It's certainly true that consumers prefer seedless grapes and watermelons. I can understand the farmer's situation (making a living), and I suppose that while this is mostly harmless, it is not entirely harmless. Somewhere, somehow, the original (heirloom) varieties need to survive as a foundation.

Apple cores used to be much larger. Now, in the supermarket varieties we like (Ambrosia, Gala, Fuji), the cores are quite tiny with few seeds. Obviously the focus is on maximizing the flesh of the fruit.

The viability of apple seeds is interesting but academic to me, since seed-grown apples will not survive our extreme winters. The current varieties we can grow in 3b are amazing, but they all use a hardy apple rootstock for survivability. The rootstocks typically send out suckers so they can be perpetually harvested and rooted if desired.

Marshall Ashworth wrote:
So i gather seed from pineapples and got a few tops from a farmer who was growing queen pineapples from the 60s when they used to import them with the tops

Wait, pineapple seeds? I've never seen pineapple seeds! How did you get pineapples with seeds? What are they like?

Marshall Ashworth wrote:So now my question is, when exactly did they start breeding seeds out of food ?

At least a few thousand years ago. I, for one, am glad our bananas and watermelon don't look like this anymore.

John Wolfram wrote:

Marshall Ashworth wrote:So now my question is, when exactly did they start breeding seeds out of food ?

At least a few thousand years ago. I, for one, am glad our bananas and watermelon don't look like this anymore.

Yes they also didn't taste anything like they do now !

But yes, as noted thousands of years of people doing hetero-grafting to some degree, i have been doing research on another thread in the trees section if that topic is of interest to people.

https://permies.com/t/279794/experimenting-graft-graft-introduce-DNA


My problem is a suspicion that we've moved away from grafting and selection from seed traits and moved heavily into the genetic engineering as primary source.