Almost all fruit trees are grafted, because the seed of a fruit tree is a genetic variant of the parent and would bear genetically different fruit, whereas the fruit from a grafted "scion" branch would be identical to that of its parent.
The Tree of 40 Fruit is a single tree that, thanks to some extreme grafting, grows 40 different types of stone fruit including peaches, plums, apricots, nectarines, cherries and even almonds. That is an entire fruit salad born of a single tree.
The Tree of 40 Fruit is the work of Sam Van Aken, an associate professor of sculpture at Syracuse University in New York. He is a contemporary artist who works beyond traditional art making, developing new-perspective art projects in communication, botany and agriculture.
Van Aken began work on his first Tree of 40 Fruit in 2008, and was inspired to include harder-to-find fruits after reading a century-old book, The Plums of New York, that listed hundreds upon hundreds of varieties. The abundance was strikingly different from the few types of purple plums found in modern supermarkets today.
Primarily composed of heirloom and antique varieties, the Tree of 40 Fruit are a form of conservation, preserving stone fruit varieties that are not commercially produced or available.
It’s a project that requires patience. Van Aken lets his trees grow for about three years before coming in to start the grafting process. According to Van Aken, "It's essentially an 8 to 10-year process."
Van Aken creates lovely hand-drawn “planning diagrams” for each of his individually numbered trees … and has produced over a dozen Trees of 40 Fruit in a variety of locations throughout the United States, including community gardens, museums and private collections in Massachusetts, New Jersey, Arkansas, Kentucky, Indiana, Maine and California.
The choice of the number 40 is not random. It’s a number rich with biblical allusions, such as the 40 days and 40 nights of rain when Noah built an ark, and the amount of time Jesus fasted. According to Van Aken, it was chosen because it was thus used as an unquantifiable number, synonymous with a multitude, not the quantifiable “dozen” and not the infinite, but a number that’s beyond counting. It represents bounty or a multitude, so relates to one of the reasons why he started this project … to raise awareness about the loss of diversity in food.
In a 2021 interview with Marisa Prefer, Manager of Sustainability at Pioneer Works in Brooklyn NY, Van Aken says:
“What has become the really interesting part for me particularly over the past few years, is the idea of treating the fruit not just as an agricultural product but as a cultural object. There’s so much history and narrative embedded in fruit trees and to think that varieties that we have now that were able to survive and not get wiped out by the Industrial Age is astonishing. A variety needs to be grafted onto a new root structure at least every 20 to 30 years to stay viable.”
In 2019 Van Aken gave a short TED talk on his work. You can watch that HERE.
Story Idea: Greg Ross, Futility Closet
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References
wikipedia.org/wiki/Tree_of_40_Fruit
samvanaken.com/tree-of-40-fruit-2
magicvalley.com/tree-pluribus-unum-many-fruits-stem-from-artists-grafts
stanforddaily.com/2023/06/08/tree-at-stanford-grows-40-different-fruits/
pioneerworks.org/broadcast/sam-van-aken-interview
Images
1. Tree of 40 Fruit, Van Aken planning diagram for 75
2. Grafting. Image credit: wikiHow.
3. Tree of 40 Fruit nursery
4. Van Aken poses with a Tree of 40 Fruit at Syracuse University in Syracuse, NY
5. The variety of fruit, harvested from one of the trees in one week, in August 2011
6. Planning diagrams for 26, 24, 23 and 22
7. It's even become a cheesy meme
8. TED Talk: "How one tree grows 40 different kinds of fruit", Sam Van Aken, September 2019
