Deep Question…

Posted on 08.22.06 in General and there are 20 comments.

How do you grow seedless oranges?

As my kids ate their lunch this afternoon and they enjoyed their seedless wonders, this question crossed my mind.

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It’s done by grafting a navel orange tree onto the trunk of another similar tree.  The navel orange first occurred as a mutant variety of a normal orange tree in Brazil in the early 1800’s.  The specific mutation resulted in the distinct “navel” protuberance on one end (actually, the beginning growth of another blossom).  As this was a desired trait, grafts were taken and spread around the world.  All seedless oranges are descended from this one tree.

Seedless grapes and seedless watermelons come about in similar ways.  You can read more about this here.

If they ask, tell your girls that they cut and paste part of one special tree onto the base of a regular tree.

Maybe this will heal my wounded pride.

Um. Wow. That’s really interesting.

Did you already know all that or did you sift through that whole article? Either way I’m super impressed.

Are you a gardener?

I’m not a gardener.  Rather a black thumb, actually.  I am, however, a purveyor of trivia both relevant and useless.  I knew about 90% of the above facts off the top of my head.  I skimmed through a half-dozen sites and selected the one above as the most thorough explanation.  I did not know that it all started in Brazil, though.  It is interesting, isn’t it, especially that seedless watermelons were created through cross-breeding a normal watermelon with a mutant watermelon to create yet another type of mutant watermelon.

Or, were you just being sarcastic when you said it’s really interesting?

No, I do actually find that interesting.

I have a brown thumb. I keep plants in a constant state of misery. When I enter a plan nursery you can actually see all the plants slouch a few inches and cross their limbs...hoping I won’t pick them.

I am the queen of random questions. It’s almost as if I never grew out of that 3 year old - “Why” phase. I’ll have to post more of my random wonderings and test the resouces of your knowledge.

I’ve always told my wife that if our child was a “why” child, she would quickly learn to not ask daddy or to ask mommy instead.  I know the answers, most of the time, and answer them in a way that makes normal people just smile and nod alot.

For example, I can tell you why the sky is blue, using the science of optics and refraction or through statistical mathmatical thermodynamic functions.  Fun, huh!

Nah, I don’t buy it.  I think you grow seedless oranges by getting the orange tree a vasectomy.

cach,
Sorry to be a know-it-all again, but: 1) the fruit come from the female parts of the tree, 2) a vasectomy is for the boy parts, and 3) the gist of what you suggest is what actually happens, as the seeds actually spontaneously abort, thus no seeds.

Nice idea, though.

Doh.

Nice try Cach, but I’m getting the feeling we shouldn’t mess with Euphrony.

Doggone it.  Now I can’t eat a seedless orange without feeling bad for all the poor little spontaneously aborted seeds.

It’s like Planned Parenthood for citrus fruits…

JUST KIDDING!!!!!!

Kat, you may be joking but I have some serious issues with anthropomorphization (def. - To ascribe human characteristics to things not human).

Fore example, I feel bad for the grapes that fall down the drain when I’m washing a bunch. If just one falls down, I’ll throw another down so that the first one won’t be alone.

You think I’m kidding…

I do this all the time. It’s terrible.

OCD?

Oh, geez, Kat, you’re one of those people who will have a can of soup in the cupboard, buy two more because you’re running low, and when you’re putting them away, you’ll move the older one to the front; Not because it has any risk of spoiling or going bad, but because you think it would feel left out and treated unfairly.  It’s true, isn’t it??  ISN’T IT??  Freak.

What a great discussion.  I always wondered if they just did the same thing they do to get roses purple and all that business.  It is much cooler that they find mutant watermellons and breed those.  I will say that I think that the heart of the seed watermelons are tastier than their seedless x-watermelon kin. 

Kat, did your mom try and get you eat your peas by saying “come on Kitty Kat, you don’t want the chicken tender momma to get lonely down in there do you?  Can’t you her Chicken tender momma?  ‘ohhhh I sure wish I had my best friend the pea down here with me.... *chomp* “ I think I am going to use that one on my kids someday.

btw, I have the Grim Reaper of thumbs.  Just ask Operamoma about a certain ficus tree I babysat for her one summer.

Cach,
Frankly, my anthropomorphization hasn’t descended to the point that I care about the way I order my soup cans. I do imagine I would be diagnosed with OCD should it reach that level.

It’s not really a consuming issue for me, but more of a floating around in the back of my head thing.

Seth,
I like peas. But as I child I did make sure my parents showed an equal amount of affection for all my stuffed animals at bedtime. If one got a better hug than the others, I made them start all over again.

Girls? Women?…
I know there are a few girls who read this blog...am I the only girl who has/had this issue????

Sigh. Maybe cach is right…

I think that this is a great attribute that you showed as a young child.  I was pretty ornery. My younger sister loved and respected equally all of her toys as well.  It was I that kidnapped them from time to time, threatening torture to Movie Set Barbie if she didn’t do my bidding. (the dishes) Until of course she caught on that my Comic Books were equally valuable to me.  ; )

I was still pretty darn protective of her.  No one was allowed to pick on her but me.

So you were one of those brothers…

My brother was a really kind brother...but he had two friends who filled all his brotherly teasing and prank pulling requirements.

Since my brother was really nice, during grade school, there were several times when bullies picked on him.

Being the spunky kid that I was, I’d always yell for help and then throw myself into the mayhem (even though I was three years younger).

I remember one time in particular, a boy with a mullet was trying to use my brother for a punching bag. I was m-a-d.

Don’t nobody mess with my brother.

I ran, jumped and got a couple handfuls of that mullet and hung my 52 pound self from that boy’s head until he let go of my brother.

Let go, he did.

All that to say, I was pretty protective of my brother too. I’m sure he hated it though. What 10 year ol boy wants his 7 year old sister to fight for him?

I have no idea what this has to do with seedless oranges....

u guys really talk about oranges much!!!
All the way from seedless oranges to how a 7 year old stud up for a 10 year old…

SAD

My grandpa used to do this for grapes. He had the best kind of grapes one could ask to have on his table. It is a thing done since people discovered that a “copy-pasted” tree can still grow and make fruits.

The Jaffa orange, also known as the Shamouti orange, is a very sweet, almost seedless orange exported from Israel. It takes its name from the city of Jaffa. Jaffa oranges are very similar to Valencia oranges, though they are much sweeter. They are characterized by their oval shape, sweet flavor, and strong aroma. The peel is light orange in color, and is normally very easy to remove from the fruit.These oranges are very cold-tolerant, allowing them to grow outside of the tropical regions normally associated with growing oranges. Jaffa oranges ripen in the spring-to-summer months, making it a midseason fruit.Jaffa oranges are susceptible to Alternaria, a type of fungus, and are prone to alternate bearing.

The name is thought to ultimately derive from the Dravidian word for the orange tree, with its final form developing after passing through numerous intermediate languages.

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