News, Art professor grows trees that can bear 40 types of fruit (growing, 2015)

[JD59]

The first time Sam Van Aken saw tree branches being grafted and grown onto other trees, he likened it to Frankenstein. Yet, when the process became a full-time fascination, the Syracuse University art professor did not seek to create a monster but a piece of art.

The "Tree of 40 Fruit" is Van Aken's creation, a single tree that can produce 40 different stone fruits, or fruit with pits, including peaches, apricots, plums, cherries and nectarines.

Growing 40 types of fruit on one tree - CNN.com

[luv4horses]

First, the photo is an artist rendering. Second, most of the fruits in the pile look like varieties of plums. Nonetheless it is an interesting excercise.

[Hemlock140]

I suppose it may be somewhat unusual to most people, but I have been grafting since a teen in the late 1960s, mostly fruit trees, taught by my grandfather who did it all his life. I currently have an apple tree with 5 varieties, pear with 4, and another apple with 2. Back in California I had a peach with white nectarines, santa rosa plums, and apricots on it. Then there were fig trees with 5-6 varieties. It's really not that hard. Almost all of the Japanese maples people buy at nurseries are grafted, as are the weeping flowering cherries.