Seedless Fruits
Seedless Fruits
INTRODUCTION Fruit incorporates the ripened ovary and surrounding tissues TO Fruits are also the means by which flowering plants disseminate seeds FRUITS
Seeds are ripened ovules
Fruit Development
TWO WAYS
FRUITS?
STENOSPERMOCARPY
In botany and horticulture, parthenocarpy (literally meaning virgin fruit) is the natural or artificially induced production of fruit without fertilization of ovules.
Parthenocarpy (or stenospermocarpy) occasionally occurs as a mutation in nature, but if it affects every flower The plant can no longer sexually reproduce but might be able to propagate by vegetative means Up to 20% of the fruits of wild parsnip are parthenocarpic.
PARTHENOCARPY
Contd
The seedless wild parsnip fruit are preferred by certain herbivores, and thus serve as a "decoy defense" against seed predation Utah juniper has a similar defense against bird feeding .[Being able to produce seedless fruit when pollination is unsuccessful may be an advantage to a plant because it provides food for the plant's seed dispersers. Without a fruit crop, the seed dispersing animals may starve or migrate.
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In some plants, pollination or other stimulation is required for parthenocarpy. This is termed stimulative parthenocarpy Plants that do not require pollination or other stimulation to produce parthenocarpic fruit have vegetative parthenocarpy Seedless cucumbers are an example of vegetative parthenocarpy, Some parthenocarpic varieties have been developed as genetically modified organisms.
Stenospermocarpy is the biological mechanism that produces parthenocarpy (seedlessness) in some fruits, notably many table grapes. In stenospermocarpic fruits, normal pollination and fertilization are still required to ensure that the fruit 'sets', i.e. continues to develop on the plant; however subsequent abortion of the embryo that began growing following fertilization leads to a near seedless condition. The remains of the undeveloped seed are visible in the fruit The fruit of seedless grapes is smaller than normal because seeds produce the plant hormone gibberellin, which causes fruit enlargement.
Stenospermocarpy
Most commercial seedless grapes are sprayed with gibberellin to increase the size of the fruit and also to make the fruit clusters less tightly packed. A new cultivar, 'Melissa', has naturally larger fruit so does not require gibberellin sprays. Grape breeders have developed some new seedless grape cultivars by using the embryo rescue technique. Before the tiny embryo aborts, it is removed from the developing fruit and grown in tissue culture until it is large enough to survive on its own. Embryo rescue allows the crossing of two seedless grape cultivars.
Commercial Importance
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Genetically modified foods change the soil's flora and fauna, which make it difficult for long-term viability of the soil to grow future crops. The genetically modified genes of the food may impact the genes of the person eating it. This can create long-term and possibly irreversible health problems. Insects pollinating or eating genetically modified foods can develop the same types of resistance, which can throw agricultural ecosystems out of balance. All of the above challenges may be irreversible
MISCONCEPTIONS
CONCLUSION