> Outside of Granny Smith apples the ones you eat are mostly the results of mutations in the grown plants that we cut off and graft.
Not sure where you're located, but this isn't true in the US. The vast majority of apples available here are seedlings of crosses by two other varieties. Examples:
Golden Delicious, one parent is Grimes Golden, the other unknown.
Fuji, Red Delicious × Ralls Janet
Gala, Kidd's Orange Red × Golden Delicious
There are certainly some sports (the technical term for for the spontaneous mutations) like you mention. Royal Gala, available in NZ, is a sport of Gala. But most are not.
An enormous amount of industry effort goes into crossing known varieties, growing the seedlings, and looking for the apples with the best traits. Cosmic Crisp is a great example of a recent one.
Not sure where you're located, but this isn't true in the US. The vast majority of apples available here are seedlings of crosses by two other varieties. Examples:
Golden Delicious, one parent is Grimes Golden, the other unknown.
Fuji, Red Delicious × Ralls Janet
Gala, Kidd's Orange Red × Golden Delicious
There are certainly some sports (the technical term for for the spontaneous mutations) like you mention. Royal Gala, available in NZ, is a sport of Gala. But most are not.
An enormous amount of industry effort goes into crossing known varieties, growing the seedlings, and looking for the apples with the best traits. Cosmic Crisp is a great example of a recent one.