A single tree that grows 40 different kinds of fruit
This magical tree grows 40 different kinds of fruit
This can be hard to believe for you but this single tree grows over 40 different types of fruits including peaches, plums, apricots, nectarines, cherries and almonds.
This special tree is created by the Syracuse University Professor Sam
Van Aken using a technique called Grafting which many of us had heard in
our biology classes back in the school.
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He says while elaborating this technique “ The idea came from just sort of a fascination with the process of grafting when I had seen it done as a child, it was Dr. Seuss and Frankenstein and just about everything fantastic I started traveling around Central New York in New York State to look for different varieties of stone fruit. Eventually I was able to find these different heirloom and antique varieties but they are very rare so it would bring them back here to my nursery and graph them onto a tree so that I could continue to use them, now, I have a huge collection of plums and apricots.
Through the project I've worked with a lot of growers and at first they didn't understand it because they were like why would you want to have a tree with that many different fruit on it you would have to go back over and over to continue to harvest all the fruits. This project is always an art project for me. I was really interested in the idea of a hoax; you know hoax transforms reality part of the idea for the tree of 40 fruit was to plant them in locations that people would sort of stumble upon. Once they happened upon one of these trees they would start to question why are the leaves shaped differently, why are they different colors, and then in summer when you would see all of these different fruit growing on them and of course in spring when they blossom in different colors it was like an artwork.
When I first started, I just crafted the branches on so each variety blossoms at a slightly different time and I had a tree that blossomed all on one side but looked dead on the other. From that point I created a timeline of when all of these different varieties blossom in relationship to each other so I could essentially sculpt how the tree would blossom. For each of the trees I keep a map essentially or a diagram of the tree. It takes a really long time, I start a tree and I let it grow for about three years and at that point I can come in and start to graft on to those branches, those 4 branches become eight the next year 8 becomes 16 and 16 becomes 32. It's essentially like an eight to nine-year process. Essentially what you're doing with clear plastic on the grafted branches is you're creating a greenhouse around the graft and so what it'll do is all that humidity helps the graft heal in. The first tree was planted in 2011 and it has the 40 varieties but I anticipate it will be about 3 or 4 years before it's at that peak and then peat blossom.
Unlike any other artworks that I've made these things continuously evolved. I think one of the reasons why I've been able to keep it going for so long is that every year it's something new and when you come out here and the trees are all in blossom it's really kind of an amazing experience and you get different fruits all summer. ”
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