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These are cotton candy grapes. They are a horticultural variety that was produced through traditional breeding practices to increase the sugar content, reduce tartness, and add the hint of vanilla flavor. Those all come from traditional crossing of other genetic lines of grapes. The process was more difficult because cotton candy grapes are seedless, so each generation had to be propagated using tissue culture.


I can't imagine eating them regularly but they are definitely worth trying out. Pretty unique experience.


At least here in the UK, Sainsbury's and Lidl sell them without this EULA on them.


How do they selectively breed seedless plants?

Wont plants propagated via tissue have the same DNA?


No, because the part of the plant that is being tissue cultured is the immature embryo. After pollination, the flowers of seedless grapes still produce an embryo, but the embryo stops developing when it is very small, and there is no fully formed seed (a process called stenospermocarpy). To grow the offspring of a cross, breeders have to dissect the immature fruit (the flower's ovary) and remove the immature embryo. The embryo is then transferred to tissue culture media where it is grown into a plant with roots and leaves that can eventually be transferred to soil.


Are you certain the grapes are cloned using the embryos? Or are they propagated from cuttings?


In the breeding process, I am absolutely sure that during the breeding process they propagated using immature embryos. "Cloning" by definition implies vegetative propagation, and I'm sure when they finished the breeding process that is how they have propagated this cultivar.

If you are interested in more of the details, there is a wikipedia article on cotton candy grapes, If you look in the references, there are several articles with more on how the variety was produced.


Yup, I don't understand this. Vegetative propagation is cloning.


Don’t they usually just keep the parent strains a secret and create hybrid seeds?


No, not for grapes




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