# Did they used to have seedless red grapes?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-they-used-to-have-seedless-red-grapes/241768>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [April 24, 2004, 4:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-they-used-to-have-seedless-red-grapes/241768 "2004-04-24T04:57:31Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![SmackFu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/53a042/32.png) [@SmackFu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SmackFu)\
**Post date:** [April 24, 2004, 4:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-they-used-to-have-seedless-red-grapes/241768/1 "2004-04-24T04:57:31Z")

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This may be a silly question, I don’t know. But I’m curious to the answer.

When I was growing up in NJ, maybe 15 years ago, we only had green seedless grapes at home. When we had red grapes, they always had seeds. Now I go to the store and they have both types with the seedless option, and at reasonable prices.

So are the red ones a relatively recent invention, or was this just wacky happenstance?

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**Author:** ![Fear\_Itself](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fear_itself/32/19637_2.png) [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)\
**Post date:** [April 24, 2004, 12:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-they-used-to-have-seedless-red-grapes/241768/2 "2004-04-24T12:04:42Z")

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The Red Flame Seedless Grape was first bred by [Sun World](http://www.sun-world.com/Sun-WorldFruit/SunWorldSuccesses.htm), the world’s largest breeder of fruit:

> [@](#):
>
> Sun World has developed or introduced more than 100 new fruit and vegetable varieties. In the late 1970s, it was the first to commercially produce and promote the now ubiquitous Red Flame Seedless grape from vineyards in the Coachella Valley.

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![SmackFu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/53a042/32.png) [@SmackFu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SmackFu)\
**Post date:** [April 27, 2004, 2:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-they-used-to-have-seedless-red-grapes/241768/3 "2004-04-27T14:19:16Z")

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Interesting… I suppose they could have still been premium in the mid to late 80’s. Or maybe someone else managed to copy the original.