40 types of fruits on one tree

 

When you see a picture of multiple types of fruit on the same tree, you might think at first that the picture was created with AI or edited in Photoshop. Although it may sound surprising, trees bearing 40 types of fruit do indeed exist in the world. The tree created by Professor Sam Van Aken of Syracuse University in the United States through grafting or grafting methods bears 40 types of fruit. In the spring, the tree blooms with dozens of colorful flowers. After a few months, you can see various types of fruits such as peaches, palms, cherries, and apricots hanging loosely from the tree's various branches.

Sam Van Aken is primarily a sculptor. However, instead of inanimate materials like stone or bronze, he prefers to work with living plants. To him, a tree is not just nature, but a living work of art that has evolved over time. Van Aken's main goal is to present complex environmental problems to the public in a simple way. His 40-fruit tree is not just an ordinary tree. He is presenting this tree as a wonderful combination of food, industry, and environmental conservation.

The fact that 40 types of fruit can be grown on the same tree is made possible by grafting. This technique has been used in agriculture for thousands of years. Van Eken uses a delicate method called chip grafting. In this method, a bud is taken from a fruiting tree branch and placed on the branch of another host tree. Over time, the tissues of the two branches fuse with each other. The new branch then grows as part of the main tree and bears fruit. However, there is a certain limit to this diversity. All the fruits of this tree belong to the Prunus genus. These include peaches, palms, cherries, apricots and almonds. Since all these species are genetically related to each other, their circulatory systems can adapt to each other. That is why it is not possible to combine apples and oranges on the same tree.

The journey of this project began in 2008. However, a 40-fruit tree was not created in a day. Each tree takes about five to seven years to complete. After a long period of careful selection of the right branches, grafting and close monitoring, the first tree reached maturity around 2013-14 and began producing 40 varieties of fruit.

In 2008, Van Aken bought an agricultural research garden in New York that was about to close. It contained many rare species of fruit trees that were about to disappear due to lack of importance in commercial agriculture. Van Aken decided to unite them into a single tree to save those endangered species.