Apple cloning and the importance of genetic variability · 10:38pm Jun 6th, 2014
It's time we had a science lesson from Applejack...
“So in this field we have McIntosh, Golden Russet, Redstreak, Macoun and Ashmead's Kernel. Then down in the south orchard we keep Granny Smith, Westfield Seek-No-Further, Flower of Kent, Tremlett's Bitter...”
Twilight followed Applejack along the path through the Sweet Apple Acres orchards, admiring the blooming fruit trees while listening to her jabber on. When Applejack talked like this, it was not always obvious whether she was describing part of her farm, or a distant branch of the Apple family.
“...then we have Rosemary Russet, Jonagold, Blenheim Orange, Cortland, Idared, Dabinett...”
Or possibly both at the same time.
“...Nickajack, Roxbury Russet, Royal Gala, Brown Snout, Allin'ton Pippin...”
“Applejack?” Twilight said.
“...Baldwin, Cox's Orange Pippin, Pixie, Honeycrisp, Knobbled Russet, Opal...”
“APPLEJACK!”
“Yes, Twilight?”
“Why do you have to grow so many different apples?”
“'Cause that's what we do here in on the apple farm, Twilight. We, uh... grow apples,” Applejack replied with her usual honesty.
“But why do you grow so many varieties? Why not just stick with one or two? Wouldn't that make things easier to manage?”
“Well, that maybe how some folks do it,” replied Applejack with a stern look, “but that's not how we do it on mah farm.”
“Why not?”
“Well one or two may be fine for the likes of Filthy Rich. If all you want is some uniform, thick-skinned fruit with a long shelf life to stock in Barnyard Bargains. But you want you want to make a proper apple pie, and real cider, and have a decent range of sweet, tart, succulent, and crunchy treats; then you need a diverse orchard. But there's more to it than that. We have to maintain genetic variability.”
“Genetic what?”
“Variability. Ye see, we grow apples by graftin' a stem cutting onto a rootstock. Which means they're genetic clones of their parents. Melrose here”—Applejack gently laid a hoof against the trunk of one of her favourites—“her full name is Melrose 4652. Being a clone of Melrose 4651, and all the other Melrose's in Sweet Apple Acres, and around Equestria.”
“Right...”
“But keepin' a farm full is clones is mighty risky thing to do. Just think of the disasters which could strike.”
“Like?”
Applejack leaned over and spoke softly into her friend's ear, unwilling to speak the name of any evil louder than necessary. “Apple scab, apple rust, fireblight, powdery mildew, wooly apple aphids,” she said with a grim face. Each of these was a foe to be reckoned with. “If you get a new variety of pest hit yer farm, and yer trees are the same, it can wipe out the lot. You heard the tale of the Baltimare Potato Famine, I guess?”
Twilight nodded grimly. The historic crop failure in Baltimare and Connemarea (turned into a devastating famine due to the inaction of the absentee Trottingham landlords), was one of darkest chapters of Equestrian history.
“Back in those days, the Baltimares lived entirely on potatoes. All the farms growin' one type of plant. Enter the potato blight, and it killed them all off.” She shuddered at the memory.
“So you need a lot of apple trees so at least some will survive an applecalypse?”
“Exactly. Much as I'd hate to lose a single tree. I'd hate it even more to lose the entire farm.”
“But surely that wouldn't happen—”
“Growing apples is war! Twilight, I swear every night when I'm lying in bed, I can hear them aphids marching towards my trees. We fight them all we can. But the only real way to keep 'em at bay is to breed pest-resistant trees. But them pathogens keep changing too. As soon as you think you've got a winner, along comes a mutant monster that kills 'em. That's evolution. So we have to keep breeding new ones from seed. But to do that, we need a big gene pool – so lots of different trees. The puniest little crab-apple may save the day, if it's got a certain anti-pathogen gene.”
“So how many types of tree do you have?”
“Few hundred I guess. Not that many really.”
“Not that many?”
“Well there's some six thousand varieties of apple all in all. What we've got here is just a small sample. But the Apple family keep a record of 'em all, so across all Equestria, we have 'em all.”
The two friends walked out of the orchard towards the farmhouse.
“Come on—time for some apple pie. Granny Smith's been cookin' up the last of last year's Bramley and Catshead.”
Yes. Gene pools are very important. Though I wonder about the logistics of managing all that. Anything that brought this up, or just a friendly science lesson?
*Grins* I'm overjoyed we have a semi-local orchard that specialize in less common apple types and have a large amount of genetic variety on display. Enough so that I actually recognized more types than I expected too.
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No particular news tag. Friendly science lessons is what I do. And I wanted to try something with Applejack.
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Most orchards have a pretty big selection on hand, or at least they have in my experience.
Very true. And I appreciate your explanation of exactly why the Apples have to be more than simple-minded farmers. Farming is not actually a simple-minded activity, it only looks that way from the viewpoint of an ignorant outsider.
Great take on science from AJ, it makes perfect sense that she would be knowledgeable about this particular topic.
In my country, the creatards would freakout with mention of evolution. From my perspective, it seems that England is more proscience. ¿Is that an illusion of the grass being greener? or ¿is England truly more proscience?
On another note, it is a little over a fortnight to TauDay. I celebration, I converted Tau into balanced ternary using a calculator and a little less than an hour of my time:
τ = c/r ≈ 1T0 . 10T,T0T,110 , 0T1,10T,T0T , 1TT,000,001
June (yyyy-06-28) which is TauDay. I wonder what sort of post you will have for TauDay.
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Hmm...
Well I'll have to write something with two Pies
img2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20140317121402/mlp/images/thumb/4/49/Pinkie_Pie_%22Where_was_he%3F%22_S4E18.png/320px-Pinkie_Pie_%22Where_was_he%3F%22_S4E18.png
From a genetic standpoint, apples seem to be designed by Discord. If an apple tree isn't cloned, there's no telling what its fruit will be like. I wonder if the Apples can sense that kind of thing early on. It'd be a very cool form of earth pony magic.
In any case, very nice snippet.
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¡I Love Maud Pie!:
Season 4 gave us 4 great new characters:
* CheeseSandwich
* Maude Pie
* SeaBreeze
* Coco Pommel
As for SilverShill and TrenderHoof, not so much.
If the Breezies are smart, they will never leave their home again. It ain’t is being Breezies in Equestria —— ¡and lethal anywhere else on Equus!
I love your blogposts and stories with Maude Pie in them. One can have Pinkamena Diane Pie and Maude Pie explain that the the radius defines the circle:
Maude Pie:
“A circle is all points on a 2D Euclidean Plain equidistant from a point called the origin. We let the circle measure itself by calling the radius (r), the distance to the circle from the origin, 1. This is a UnitCircle”
Pinkamena Diane Pie:
“We call the distance around the circle the circumference (c). if we divide c by r (c/r), we get the circleconstant tau (τ).”
Maude Pie:
"Tau is not a rational number. That means that one cannot express it as a fraction."
Pinkamena Diane Pie:
“Tau is also transcendental. That means that it does not work in the Make-It-0-Game:”
Maude Pie and Pinkamena Diane Pie play the Make-It-0Game:
Pinkamena Diane Pie:
“Squareroot of 2.”
Maude Pie:
“Square”
Pinkamena Diane Pie:
"Subtract 2"
Maude Pie:
“0”
Maude Pie:
“The rules of the Make-It-0-Game are that one can raise to integer powers with negative powers allowed, multiple and divide by integers, and add or subtract integers. Any number which cannot be made to 0 in finite steps is transcendental, although nonalgebraic would be a better term. Tau is transcendental.”
Pinkamena Diane Pie:
“One can approximate Tau like thus:”
τ ≈ 1T0 . 10T,T0T,110 , 0T1,10T,T0T , 1TT,000,001
Pinkamena Diane Pie:
“That is in balanced ternary.”
Maude Pie:
“Decimal, it is about 6.28318530717959.”
Pinkamena Diane Pie:
“My friend Lyra Heartstrings believed in humans. She said that we got the decimal system from humans because humans have 10 digits on their forelimbs. No pony believed her hypothesis until Princess Twilight Sparkle confirmed it.”
Maude Pie:
“Remember, fillies and colts, that reality is the ultimate arbiter. By the way, the HumanWorld comfirms the existance of humans, but ponies still might have gotten the decimal system else whence.“
Pinkamena Diane Pie:
“We use Tau in trigonometry. By definition, a circle has TauRadians. A radian is the length of the radius laid out along the edge of a circle. This allows us to express fractions of a circle as fractions of Tau. τ/3 is a third of a circle.”
Maude Pie:
“For figurining out the inside of circular things the equation is ((d-1)/(d))(τ)(r^d).”
Pinkamena Diane Pie:
“As an example a UnitSphere is ((3-1)/(3))(τ)(r^3). This simplifies to (2/3)τr^3. That equals approximately 4.18879020478639r^3.”
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Please feel free to use any of the examples given.