Navel Oranges Are CLONES!

[Junket]

A single mutation in 1820 in an orchard of sweet oranges planted at a monastery in Brazil yielded the navel orange, also known as the Washington, Riverside, or Bahie navel. The mutation causes navel oranges to develop a second orange at the base of the original fruit, opposite the stem. The second orange develops as a conjoined twin in a set of smaller segments embedded within the peel of the larger orange. From the outside, it looks similar to the human navel.

Because the mutation left the fruit seedless and, therefore, sterile, the only means available to cultivate more of this new variety is to graft cuttings onto other varieties of citrus tree. Two such cuttings of the original tree were transplanted[2] to Riverside, California in 1870, which eventually led to worldwide popularity.

Today, navel oranges continue to be produced via cutting and grafting. This does not allow for the usual selective breeding methodologies, and so not only do the navel oranges of today have exactly the same genetic makeup as the original tree, and are therefore clones; in a sense, all navel oranges can be considered to be the fruit of that single over-a-century-old tree.

On rare occasions, however, further mutations can lead to new varieties.[3]

[url]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orange_(fruit)#Navel_orange[/url]

To think that navels, my favorite fruit were a random mutation!

[IndiReloaded]

I love the tiny oranges, Clementines. I got some from Cali last week, they call them 'cuties'.

[Aeradalia]

Clones... ensuring the taste you've come to love in an orange --- the exact taste.

Ah... slogans of the future!

[Junket]

But what's crazy is that they're not genetically modified at all!

It's humans simply taking advantage of a natural mutation.

[Aeradalia]

You seem disappointed... humans take advantage of naturally occurring mutations all the time.

Hell... quite a bit of our progress in other areas of science (not just genetics) were based on accidents or mistakes.

[lovesjoyajm]

I didn't think Fras seemed disappointed. More amused. I think it's pretty cool that they haven't genetically modified them, but rather cloned them in their natural occurrence.

[Junket]

Why the hell would I be disappointed?

Are you projecting?