Why are there so many varieties of apples yet other forms of produce may only have 2 or 3 varieties (or none at all)?

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If I go to the grocery store I’ll see multiple bins with different types of apples, but if I look at the banana section it’s just a bin of same variety bananas. Why?

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Anonymous 0 Comments

As the other commenters have said, some types of food plant have a lot of varieties because people specifically bred and crossbred a bunch of different kinds. People did this for a LOT of different plants too, but not all varieties of fruits are able to be grown or transported efficiently. Usually only the types of crops easiest to mass-grow become commonplace.

As another example of a lot of fruit varieties, [every single citrus fruit ever came from 3 initial species, the citron, pomelo, and mandarin.](https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/grapefruit-history-and-drug-interactions) These have been crossbred and selectively bred into familiar fruits such as lemons, limes, oranges, and grapefruits, but there are *tons* more that aren’t commonly grown in mass quantities.

For a non fruit example, [cabbage, kale, and broccoli, as well as various other veggies,](https://www.vox.com/xpress/2014/8/6/5974989/kale-cauliflower-cabbage-broccoli-same-plant) were all bred from the same ancestor veggie.

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