Most fruits and vegetables grown around the world by farmers are hybrids, especially the ones ending up in the shops. These varieties created from interbreeding two or more separate strains. Over generations of selective breeding and cross fertilizing, hybrid plants and therefore the fruits can be tailored to have any specific characteristics. They may have larger fruits, longer shelf life, sweeter fruits, faster growth or greater resistance to pests and diseases.
Simply put if two open pollinated varieties are crossed the first generatin, know as F1 hybrids, has the dominant qualities of its parents. As a result F1 varieties can produce more abundant crops than either of their parent varieties. In the real world it is much complicated than that, plant breeders work hard to develop new hybrids, carefully selecting the desired qualities over many generations by cross pollinating only the best performing strains.
Many of these hybrids are developed for their long shelf life, often having the taste only as a second most important factor. The hybrid veg seeds sold by seed companies are developed mostly for their incredible taste, like the sungold tomato, for their diseases resistance and vigour like the carmen cucumber.
The genetic principles of creating hybrid varieties was discovered by an Austrian monk called Mendel. He even published his results, based on experimenting with garden peas, in 1866.
