6 ms·

Tree of Forty Fruit

73 points by chris1993 7y ago

jaggederest 7y ago
When she was younger, my mother owned a house with an apple tree that produced six varieties. I understand this can also be done with citrus and grapes, as well. Pretty fascinating that their immune systems don't cross react, I think I remember that plants mostly use innate rather than active immunity.
- FreeFull 7y ago
  It can also be done with plants in the nightshade family. So, for example, you can transplant the branches from a tomato plant onto a potato plant.
  - dehrmann 7y ago
    Or tomato to tobacco.
    - pvaldes 7y ago
      Tomato mosaic virus would approve this
  - cpete 7y ago
    You just jogged my memory about a "tomato transplant mystery" in Berton Roueche's Medical Detectives. Link to a summary of the original 1965 New Yorker essay: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1965/05/15/something-a-little-unusual https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1965/05/15/something-a-li...
- pvaldes 7y ago
  Six is fine, fourty is excessive
chucky 7y ago
The image says "artist rendering", it is unclear to me whether this tree exists today or if it's an ongoing project that expects to be finished some time in the future (40 successful grafts would take a number of years to do I imagine). Edit: googling answered my own question, this is indeed an ongoing project: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/innovation/a-tree-grows-40-different-types-of-fruit-180953868/ https://www.smithsonianmag.com/innovation/a-tree-grows-40-di...
- sp332 7y ago
  There's another interview with images of another tree at https://www.21cmuseumhotels.com/museum/exhibit/tree-of-40-fruits/ https://www.21cmuseumhotels.com/museum/exhibit/tree-of-40-fr...
- fencepost 7y ago
  While it's an ongoing project producing them, as of the 2015 article "Today, there are 18 of these wondrous trees across the country, with three more being planted this spring in Illinois, Michigan and California. Seven are located in New York—including the very first Tree of 40 Fruit that’s still on the Syracuse campus—and six more are in a small grove in Portland, Maine."
- pvaldes 7y ago
  Exists most probably, but will not appear like these
Jedd 7y ago
These are an awful lot of work. I've got a couple of multigraft trees, with just 3 varieties (apples) on each, but wouldn't want anymore. Some varieties are much more vigorous than others, so they require a lot more care and effort with pruning and training. Pest control, irrigation, picking are also much more complicated, as different varieties ripen at different times (often over many months). As I understand it there's no productivity gains either, in terms of volume of produce per unit of (land) area. Most commercial growers have moved / are moving towards upright trees, with dense plantings (1m spacing or less), as it maximises the labour, off-farm inputs, and management costs versus saleable produce. Doesn't look as pretty as the imagined idyll, but little of industrial agriculture does.
- dev_dull 7y ago
  It’s fun for small yards. I have a few plum and pluot multigrain. As you suggest it’s usually a game of wack-a-mole balancing the healthy vigorous variety with the slow one. The benefit is different fruit varieties at different times of the year.
  - Jedd 7y ago
    I think even in small yards it's better to have a couple of upright trees. For pomes (apples, pears etc) in Australia we're seeing most nurseries now sell these on M27 (tiny footprint - will grow to about the size of a human), or M9 (bit bigger but still quite dwarfed). 3 x M27 grafted apples will take up the same (or less) space than a single standard multi-graft tree, but be easier to manage, be more resilient, while still giving you the longer harvest season & variety options.
- pvaldes 7y ago
  One of the points of grafting a familiar cocktail tree is to have different varieties rippen at different times, assuring the longest fruit season possible.
  - Jedd 7y ago
    Again, the problem is that it's often easier to simply have different varieties on different trees, given those trees can be on highly-dwarfing rootstocks, so that they take up a similar space as a 'cocktail tree' with multiple grafts. Multiple trees also turn out to be a lot easier to manage -- you can prune them all the same size & shape, for starters, rather than having to track which branches belong to which variety and try to coax the slower growing specimens along, while being extra savage with the more vigorous varieties.
markdown 7y ago
As far as I can tell, it's only a tree of 5 or 6 different fruit, but multiple cultivars/varieties of each.
shostack 7y ago
So I've got an ornamental plum that doesn't really fruit. I've read it can still be used just fine for grafts. Does anyone have good resources on how to get started grafting to do this? I have access to peach, apricot, cherry, apple and nectarine trees as the donor grafts.
- pvaldes 7y ago
  First of all: climate. Second: identify your trees Forget about apple, is not compatible with plum. If you buy me a beer I could help you with this.
- benj111 7y ago
  I don't think an apple root stock would work as its not closely related. Additionally, theres a technique called budding[1] where you just graft individual buds. This has the advantage of maintaining the habit and structural integrity of the root stock. Haven't got any good resources for you though, sorry. [1] https://www.rhs.org.uk/advice/profile?pid=400 https://www.rhs.org.uk/advice/profile?pid=400
- mikro2nd 7y ago
  There's a ton of good material about grafting on Youtube. See also the Growing Fruit forum at growingfruit.org
benj111 7y ago
For Apples these are known and sold as 'family trees'. Here's one with 250 varieties of apple. https://www.bbc.com/news/av/science-environment-24348394/man-grows-tree-with-250-varieties-of-apple https://www.bbc.com/news/av/science-environment-24348394/man...
dougmwne 7y ago
This reminds me of the Library Grape from Anathem: "The library grape had been sequenced by the avout of the Concent of the Lower Vrone in the days before the Second Sack. Every cell carried in its nucleus the genetic sequences, not just of a single species, but of every naturally occurring species of grape that the Vrone avout has ever heard of -- and if those people hadn't heard of a grape, it wasn't worth knowing about. In addition, it carried excerpts from the genetic sequences of thousands of different berries, fruits, flowers, and herbs: just those snatches of data that, when invoked by the biochemical messaging system of the host cell, produced flavorful molecules. Each nucleus was an archive, vaster than the Great Library of Baz, storing codes for shaping almost every molecule nature had ever produced that left an impression on the human olfactory system. A given vine could not express all of those genes at once -- it could not be a hundred different species of grape at the same time -- so it "decided" which of those genes to express -- what grape to be, and what flavors to borrow -- based on some impossibly murky and ambiguous data-gathering and decision-making process that the Vrone avout had hand-coded into its proteins. No nuance of the sun, soil, weather, or wind was too subtle for the library grape to take into account. Nothing that the cultivator did, or failed to do, went undetected or failed to have consequences in the flavor of the juice. The library grape was legendary for its skill in penetrating the subterfuges of winemakers who were so arrogant as to believe they could trick it into being the same grape two seasons in a row."
pvaldes 7y ago
This is a Prunus tree most probably. Could bear different varieties of cherries, plums, mirabelles, damsons, gages, peaches, almonds, plumcots, and pluots. All at the same time. You can have also a tree with 40 varieties of apples and a similar good display in spring. It would need some watching and effort to manage it at long term (avoid vigorous stems killing the other fruits, avoid virus spreading) but is possible, yep. With accurate pruning could produce around 1,5 Kg of each fruit at year or so at ten years, plus a really nice display of white and pink flowers each spring. It must be noted also that either the tree is specifically created by somebody that knows what is doing, or can ve very dissapointing. Try this with Citrus would be dangerous for example. You can't have plums and apples or pears in the same tree. No matter how many peach varieties you graft, you can't have peaches if your climate is not rigth for it, so this will work fine in a computer, but you'll need to be much more astute and observant to translate this succesfully to real life.
simonebrunozzi 7y ago
I don't understand how a single tree can produce not one, not two, but a multitude of different stone fruits. And how would you go about making it happen? Is it a combination of "grafts" (is that how you call them in English?) ?

73 points by chris1993 7y ago

When she was younger, my mother owned a house with an apple tree that produced six varieties. I understand this can also be done with citrus and grapes, as well. Pretty fascinating that their immune systems don't cross react, I think I remember that plants mostly use innate rather than active immunity.

FreeFull 7y ago
It can also be done with plants in the nightshade family. So, for example, you can transplant the branches from a tomato plant onto a potato plant.
- dehrmann 7y ago
  Or tomato to tobacco.
  - pvaldes 7y ago
    Tomato mosaic virus would approve this
- cpete 7y ago
  You just jogged my memory about a "tomato transplant mystery" in Berton Roueche's Medical Detectives. Link to a summary of the original 1965 New Yorker essay: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1965/05/15/something-a-little-unusual https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1965/05/15/something-a-li...
pvaldes 7y ago
Six is fine, fourty is excessive

chucky 7y ago

The image says "artist rendering", it is unclear to me whether this tree exists today or if it's an ongoing project that expects to be finished some time in the future (40 successful grafts would take a number of years to do I imagine). Edit: googling answered my own question, this is indeed an ongoing project: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/innovation/a-tree-grows-40-different-types-of-fruit-180953868/ https://www.smithsonianmag.com/innovation/a-tree-grows-40-di...

sp332 7y ago
There's another interview with images of another tree at https://www.21cmuseumhotels.com/museum/exhibit/tree-of-40-fruits/ https://www.21cmuseumhotels.com/museum/exhibit/tree-of-40-fr...
fencepost 7y ago
While it's an ongoing project producing them, as of the 2015 article "Today, there are 18 of these wondrous trees across the country, with three more being planted this spring in Illinois, Michigan and California. Seven are located in New York—including the very first Tree of 40 Fruit that’s still on the Syracuse campus—and six more are in a small grove in Portland, Maine."
pvaldes 7y ago
Exists most probably, but will not appear like these

Jedd 7y ago

These are an awful lot of work. I've got a couple of multigraft trees, with just 3 varieties (apples) on each, but wouldn't want anymore. Some varieties are much more vigorous than others, so they require a lot more care and effort with pruning and training. Pest control, irrigation, picking are also much more complicated, as different varieties ripen at different times (often over many months). As I understand it there's no productivity gains either, in terms of volume of produce per unit of (land) area. Most commercial growers have moved / are moving towards upright trees, with dense plantings (1m spacing or less), as it maximises the labour, off-farm inputs, and management costs versus saleable produce. Doesn't look as pretty as the imagined idyll, but little of industrial agriculture does.

dev_dull 7y ago
It’s fun for small yards. I have a few plum and pluot multigrain. As you suggest it’s usually a game of wack-a-mole balancing the healthy vigorous variety with the slow one. The benefit is different fruit varieties at different times of the year.
- Jedd 7y ago
  I think even in small yards it's better to have a couple of upright trees. For pomes (apples, pears etc) in Australia we're seeing most nurseries now sell these on M27 (tiny footprint - will grow to about the size of a human), or M9 (bit bigger but still quite dwarfed). 3 x M27 grafted apples will take up the same (or less) space than a single standard multi-graft tree, but be easier to manage, be more resilient, while still giving you the longer harvest season & variety options.
pvaldes 7y ago
One of the points of grafting a familiar cocktail tree is to have different varieties rippen at different times, assuring the longest fruit season possible.
- Jedd 7y ago
  Again, the problem is that it's often easier to simply have different varieties on different trees, given those trees can be on highly-dwarfing rootstocks, so that they take up a similar space as a 'cocktail tree' with multiple grafts. Multiple trees also turn out to be a lot easier to manage -- you can prune them all the same size & shape, for starters, rather than having to track which branches belong to which variety and try to coax the slower growing specimens along, while being extra savage with the more vigorous varieties.

markdown 7y ago

As far as I can tell, it's only a tree of 5 or 6 different fruit, but multiple cultivars/varieties of each.

shostack 7y ago

So I've got an ornamental plum that doesn't really fruit. I've read it can still be used just fine for grafts. Does anyone have good resources on how to get started grafting to do this? I have access to peach, apricot, cherry, apple and nectarine trees as the donor grafts.

pvaldes 7y ago
First of all: climate. Second: identify your trees Forget about apple, is not compatible with plum. If you buy me a beer I could help you with this.
benj111 7y ago
I don't think an apple root stock would work as its not closely related. Additionally, theres a technique called budding[1] where you just graft individual buds. This has the advantage of maintaining the habit and structural integrity of the root stock. Haven't got any good resources for you though, sorry. [1] https://www.rhs.org.uk/advice/profile?pid=400 https://www.rhs.org.uk/advice/profile?pid=400
mikro2nd 7y ago
There's a ton of good material about grafting on Youtube. See also the Growing Fruit forum at growingfruit.org

benj111 7y ago

For Apples these are known and sold as 'family trees'. Here's one with 250 varieties of apple. https://www.bbc.com/news/av/science-environment-24348394/man-grows-tree-with-250-varieties-of-apple https://www.bbc.com/news/av/science-environment-24348394/man...

dougmwne 7y ago

This reminds me of the Library Grape from Anathem: "The library grape had been sequenced by the avout of the Concent of the Lower Vrone in the days before the Second Sack. Every cell carried in its nucleus the genetic sequences, not just of a single species, but of every naturally occurring species of grape that the Vrone avout has ever heard of -- and if those people hadn't heard of a grape, it wasn't worth knowing about. In addition, it carried excerpts from the genetic sequences of thousands of different berries, fruits, flowers, and herbs: just those snatches of data that, when invoked by the biochemical messaging system of the host cell, produced flavorful molecules. Each nucleus was an archive, vaster than the Great Library of Baz, storing codes for shaping almost every molecule nature had ever produced that left an impression on the human olfactory system. A given vine could not express all of those genes at once -- it could not be a hundred different species of grape at the same time -- so it "decided" which of those genes to express -- what grape to be, and what flavors to borrow -- based on some impossibly murky and ambiguous data-gathering and decision-making process that the Vrone avout had hand-coded into its proteins. No nuance of the sun, soil, weather, or wind was too subtle for the library grape to take into account. Nothing that the cultivator did, or failed to do, went undetected or failed to have consequences in the flavor of the juice. The library grape was legendary for its skill in penetrating the subterfuges of winemakers who were so arrogant as to believe they could trick it into being the same grape two seasons in a row."

pvaldes 7y ago

This is a Prunus tree most probably. Could bear different varieties of cherries, plums, mirabelles, damsons, gages, peaches, almonds, plumcots, and pluots. All at the same time. You can have also a tree with 40 varieties of apples and a similar good display in spring. It would need some watching and effort to manage it at long term (avoid vigorous stems killing the other fruits, avoid virus spreading) but is possible, yep. With accurate pruning could produce around 1,5 Kg of each fruit at year or so at ten years, plus a really nice display of white and pink flowers each spring. It must be noted also that either the tree is specifically created by somebody that knows what is doing, or can ve very dissapointing. Try this with Citrus would be dangerous for example. You can't have plums and apples or pears in the same tree. No matter how many peach varieties you graft, you can't have peaches if your climate is not rigth for it, so this will work fine in a computer, but you'll need to be much more astute and observant to translate this succesfully to real life.

simonebrunozzi 7y ago

I don't understand how a single tree can produce not one, not two, but a multitude of different stone fruits. And how would you go about making it happen? Is it a combination of "grafts" (is that how you call them in English?) ?