Thread: multiple fruit
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Old 04-15-2009, 12:02 AM   #8 (permalink)
JoeReal
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Default Re: multiple fruit

In the case of stone fruits, they are normally not aggregate fruits. That is why they are called stone fruits, simply because they have a single seed per fruit called the stone or the pit. Stone fruits are never aggregate fruits and never will ever be.

I have observed some mutations that started with the flowers. Normally stone fruits have complete flowers, 99.9% of the time, but I have observed that some flowers are just pure female parts, containing only pistils, and for that matter, pistils that were split into two or more equal parts, having just one set of petals on one petiole. And they form conjoined fruits. But those are exceptions rather than the norm. These could be caused by mechanical damage such as late frost events, other type of weather related events, chemical sprays, fungal damages or insects. The flowers mutated and split, and some of them are perfectly normal after the split and remained conjoined, and will set fruit. I normally remove those whenever I can, except from time to time for curiosity's sake. But those could become oversize and break your branches later in the season. So when thinning out, they are the first ones to go.

Other common splits could occur with some cherry cultivars. Some cherry cultivars will often have split ovules on one flower, and they set into full fruits and so you sometimes buy them conjoined together, especially from farmer's market products. Some cultivars are selected to avoid such properties. But for peaches and plums, it doesn't happen as often as they do on cherries. And yet, even very frequently occurring with cherries, they are never categorized as aggregate fruits, and never will be.
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