Q.Give a detailed account on parthenocarpy. Add a note on its significance.

Step 1. Ordinarily, fertilization triggers the ovary to develop into a fruit and the ovule into a seed; parthenocarpy is what happens when a fruit-like structure develops from the ovary without any act of fertilization taking place at all, so parthenocarpic fruits invariably lack true seeds.

Step 2. Nitsch (1963) classified parthenocarpy into three types by cause: genetic parthenocarpy, arising from hybridization or mutation (examples: Citrus, Cucurbita); environmental parthenocarpy, induced by conditions such as frost, fog, or unusually low or high temperature (for example, 3 to 19 hours of low temperature induces it in Pear); and chemically induced parthenocarpy, triggered by applying growth-promoting substances such as auxins and gibberellins.

Step 3. Many economically important fruits - banana, grapes and papaya among them - are deliberately bred or induced to be seedless in exactly this way.

Step 4. In terms of significance, seedless fruits produced by parthenocarpy have real horticultural and commercial value, since they command strong commercial demand and are especially useful in preparing processed products such as jams, jellies, sauces and fruit drinks. …

Define parthenocarpy, work through Nitsch's three causal categories with examples, then state i …

• Describing parthenocarpy only as seedless fruit without covering Nitsch's three causal categories (genetic/environmental/ch …