Cuttings from identical fruit-trees...long and short term effects...read on!!!?

Question

OK, so I really have no idea on this...

I know it is possible to take cuttings from a fruit tree that displays the largest and healthiest fruit in the orchard and plant these cuttings to grow new trees, genetically identical to the tree from which the original cuttings were taken. This could result in an orchard full of superior fruit-producing trees, each maximizing quality and quantity of yield.

However,

What are the short-term AND long-term effects of this approach to this methodology.

THANKS!...

Answer 1

Short-term: uniform trees that each make good fruit.

Long-term: Because there is no variation in the orchard, the trees are all potentially susceptible to the same diseases or other damages. The gene pool doesn't have as many different alleles, so there are fewer possibilities for further improvement of the trees and the fruit.

Answer 2

Short term effect, you could get a whole orchard of superior trees. Long term effect, the lack of biodiversity will leave the strain vulnerable to pathogen, a pathogen that could overcome one tree's defense mechanism will easily infected all others.