1
00:00:00,520 --> 00:00:03,400
Speaker 1: Welcome to brain Stuff from house stuff works dot com

2
00:00:03,600 --> 00:00:14,360
Speaker 1: where smart happens. Hi Am Marshall Brain with today's question,

3
00:00:14,920 --> 00:00:19,320
Speaker 1: how can there be seedless grapes and how do they reproduce?

4
00:00:20,200 --> 00:00:23,720
Speaker 1: If you go to a grocery store today and buy grapes,

5
00:00:23,800 --> 00:00:26,200
Speaker 1: there's a good chance that the only type of grape

6
00:00:26,239 --> 00:00:31,400
Speaker 1: you can buy is seedless Thompson seedless white grapes, for example,

7
00:00:31,440 --> 00:00:34,720
Speaker 1: don't have any seeds in them. Nearly all grape vines

8
00:00:34,760 --> 00:00:38,920
Speaker 1: in production today produce seedless grapes. It turns out that

9
00:00:39,040 --> 00:00:42,920
Speaker 1: most fruits today do not come from seeds. They come

10
00:00:42,960 --> 00:00:47,199
Speaker 1: from cuttings instead. In the case of seedless grapes, a

11
00:00:47,240 --> 00:00:50,720
Speaker 1: piece of vine is cut off, dipped in rooting hormone,

12
00:00:51,000 --> 00:00:53,600
Speaker 1: and then placed in moist dirt, so the roots and

13
00:00:53,720 --> 00:00:58,000
Speaker 1: leaves form. Because they come from cuttings, new grape vines

14
00:00:58,040 --> 00:01:02,200
Speaker 1: are essentially clones of the vine that they were cut from.

15
00:01:02,320 --> 00:01:06,720
Speaker 1: Seedless grapes actually do contain seeds at some point, but

16
00:01:06,800 --> 00:01:10,480
Speaker 1: a genetic error prevents those seeds from forming a hard

17
00:01:10,560 --> 00:01:14,760
Speaker 1: outer coat like normal seeds do, so any seeds that

18
00:01:14,920 --> 00:01:18,360
Speaker 1: do form are just tiny dots inside the fruit, and

19
00:01:18,400 --> 00:01:21,920
Speaker 1: you don't even know they're there. Someone discovered a plant

20
00:01:21,959 --> 00:01:26,119
Speaker 1: with this genetic defect and started reproducing it through cut ins.

21
00:01:26,480 --> 00:01:30,600
Speaker 1: Today's seedless grapes are all descendants from that original error.

22
00:01:33,000 --> 00:01:35,600
Speaker 1: Be sure to check out our new video podcast, Stuff

23
00:01:35,640 --> 00:01:38,280
Speaker 1: from the Future. Join How Stuff Work staff as we

24
00:01:38,319 --> 00:01:43,399
Speaker 1: explore the most promising and perplexing possibilities of tomorrow. The

25
00:01:43,440 --> 00:01:46,000
Speaker 1: How Stuff Works I Find app has arrived. Download it

26
00:01:46,080 --> 00:01:47,360
Speaker 1: today on iTunes.