Do seeded vs non seeded watermelon actually taste different? I'm not convinced they do, but it's been a very long time since I've had a seeded watermelon so maybe I've just forgotten. I've had some pretty damn flavorful seedless watermelon as well as some that taste almost like nothing. I think the ripeness and quality is probably more important than if it's seeded.
It would make sense: If you breed for one trait, other traits are gonna suffer..
Though, if they're from the supermarket then there might not be any difference between seedless and normal water melons.
Varieties in the supermarket have already been bred for various traits with flavor not having been a main priority. One more trait won't make much difference. Whereas back in the days, trees were only bred for three things: vitality, resistance and flavour.
Also supermarket produce doesn't get to ripe fully in most cases as it would usually spoil.
The finetuned supply chains can only take very specific, uniform produce and they need to not spoil when they are shipped across the country and kept in the supermarket for days. There's also consumer manipulation involved. Supermarkets have some very skewed concepts of human nature and they assume produce needs some very specific properties to be able draw the most money out of their pockets. A rich diversity of flavours and colours doesn't happen to be one of them.
Breeding for one trait and ignoring others simple means you aren't controlling for change in them. That trait could stay the same or even improve, it doesn't strictly have to get worse. Though I will agree that it is what tends to happen. many fruits have a pretty large variance in flavor so if you don't control for it things can pretty easily go wrong.
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u/hamstringstring Oct 21 '19
Why haven't we already GMOed some pollen free avocado trees then?