If Crabapples Grow Everywhere, Why Don't We Eat Them?

Crabapples grow everywhere, in parking lots, along sidewalks and outside schools, and every fall they drop thousands of tiny apples that nobody eats. So why don't we eat crabapples? The answer runs from Kazakhstan's wild apple forests to the DNA of the apple in your kitchen. In this video we look at what a crabapple actually is (it's an apple under two inches), why cities plant crabapple trees for their flowers, the drunk birds of Gilbert, Minnesota, Nikolai Vavilov and the wild apple forests near Almaty, why apples don't grow true from seed, the 2012 genetics study that found today's apples are closer to the European crabapple than to their own ancestor, and why crabapples still end up on the sidewalk instead of on our plates. Timestamps: 0:00 Why don't we eat crabapples? 0:50 What a crabapple actually is 1:47 The drunk birds of Minnesota 2:33 The wild apple forests of Kazakhstan 3:34 Why apples don't grow true from seed 4:26 The crabapple hiding in your apple's DNA 6:10 Can you eat crabapples? References: Cornille, A. et al. (2012). New Insight into the History of Domesticated Apple: Secondary Contribution of the European Wild Apple to the Genome of Cultivated Varieties. PLoS Genetics: https://journals.plos.org/plosgenetic... Smithsonian Magazine, Saving the Apple's Ancient Ancestor in the Forests of Kazakhstan: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/travel... NPR, Minnesota Residents Call Police On Rowdy Drunk Birds (2018): https://www.npr.org/2018/10/04/654489... Ohio State University, Malus (crabapple) plant facts: https://plantfacts.osu.edu/tmi/Plantl... Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Crabapple Pollenizers for Apples: https://www.ontario.ca/page/crabapple... Seed Savers Exchange, The Legacy of Johnny Appleseed: https://blog.seedsavers.org/blog/the-...