

Tree of 40 Fruit - sytelus
http://www.epicurious.com/articlesguides/chefsexperts/interviews/sam-van-aken-interview

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HNJohnC
You would think the single most important aspect of that article would be a
nice picture showing the actual trees, either in bloom or fruiting but all I
see is what looks like a photoshopped image at the top of that article.

Surprisingly the "artist" uses the same fake picture on their site as well.
There are a few minor pictures of multi fruit grafted trees which you could
find if you went to any garden center as they are quite common.

This seems like something destined to impress people who don't know any
better. I'd love to see the actual 40 grafts tree in action but it seems to be
agricultural vaporware.

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sytelus
Why you think its photoshoped? perhaps its too good to believe? He did TED
talk with more photos of the tree. It would be very unlikely for him to not
disclosed in venues like TED that these were photoshopped.

[http://new.livestream.com/tedx/manhattan2014/videos/43864399](http://new.livestream.com/tedx/manhattan2014/videos/43864399)

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thatjoist
That image is clearly photoshopped. The image quality of the tree pixels vs
the background, the strange lighting discrepancies and the shadow on bottom
left of the planter box that is somehow towards the light.

Look at the transition at 29 seconds in that talk [1]. The clouds are in the
same place.

[1][https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t9EuJ9QlikY#t=29](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t9EuJ9QlikY#t=29)

I don't hold anything against the artist though, the article just picked a
terrible image to use.

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mudil
I graft apple and pear trees in my back yard. One of my apple trees has 10+
varieties. The good thing is that once you have different varieties of apples
on the same trees, the yield increases, because you have cross-pollinating
varieties so proximately to each other. I learned how to do different grafts
from various youtube videos.

There is also a group in SF that grafts edible grafts on decorative urban
trees, such as on Japanese cherries:
[http://www.npr.org/blogs/thesalt/2012/04/07/150142001/guerri...](http://www.npr.org/blogs/thesalt/2012/04/07/150142001/guerrilla-
grafters-bring-forbidden-fruit-back-to-city-trees)

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nkurz
Have you done any pear/apple combinations? Surprisingly (at least to me),
there are some varieties of apple that are compatible with both pear and apple
rootstock. Winter Banana (an apple, not a banana) and Bartlett Pear is one of
combinations known to work. You can then use the Winter Banana graft as an
interstem, to which you can graft apple varieties which are not directly
compatible. Or you can go the other way, graft the Winter Banana on your apple
tree, and then graft pears on to that. I've got a Winter Banana started in the
back yard, but it's not yet large enough to start playing around with.

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austinz
Nifty use of grafting, a surprisingly ancient agricultural technique:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grafting](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grafting)

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elsiej
So it turns out that plants swap genetic material when grafted. It would be
really interesting to plant the seeds and see what the next generation looks
like from each of the 40 branches. Could be a very intriguing genetics
experiment.
[http://scienceblogs.com/notrocketscience/2009/05/01/unintent...](http://scienceblogs.com/notrocketscience/2009/05/01/unintentional-
genetic-engineering-grafted-plants-trade-gen/)

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nkurz
I don't think that you are interpreting the linked article correctly. The
normal belief is that there is no gene transfer with grafting. The article
claims that there can be limited gene transfer at the graft point, and that if
you cut slices at this point and grow them out by tissue culture, you can
propagate a true "graft hybrid", unlike the slightly more common "graft
chimera". While the seeds resulting from the plant that grows from this in-
vitro propagation might be interesting to study, the seeds from the fruit
grafted on to the original tree are well understood to be remain true to the
fruit (scion) and not the rootstock.

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dave1619
I would love to have one of these in my backyard. I find that a single fruit
tree produces too many fruit and only lasts a short time of fruit-giving per
year. But a free that gives 40 fruits spaced out is ideal.

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jglauche
So, can we call this a fruit salad tree?

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nardi
It's kind of a fruit tree salad.

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hcrisp
Isn't this putting all your eggs in one basket?

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maxerickson
I think for a yard tree that is also serving an ornamental purpose, you are
often doing that no matter what.

40 varieties of fruit sounds a lot nicer than 40 pounds of black walnuts
(which have a thick, tough, stinking skin if you even think you want to
harvest the nuts).

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nkurz
Blog spam:
[http://www.epicurious.com/articlesguides/chefsexperts/interv...](http://www.epicurious.com/articlesguides/chefsexperts/interviews/sam-
van-aken-interview)

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dang
Thanks, changed.

