The tree that can bear 40 different types of fruit – Americas

“I start a tree and let it grow for about 3 years, and at that point I can start to come in and graft some of those branches”, said Van Aken in this National Geographic video.

To create the plants, New York-based artist Sam van Aken painstakingly collected heirloom stone fruits – which are not commercially available – and fused them onto a single tree using a technique called grafting. And he’s sharing the secrets behind the painstaking process to make his stunning “Tree of 40 Fruit”. In the Spring, the tree blossoms into a wonderful variety of colors.

Van Aken’s experiments began in 2008 when he came across a neglected orchard on the verge of bankruptcy. He wraps the wound with tape, and as it heals the bud grows into a new branch.

I mean, sure, you COULD go around to 40 different fruit trees, but that seems like a pretty big schlep, and honestly, who has the apartment space for that many fruit trees?

“It’s a metaphor for a lot of things”, Van Aken told The Post-Standard in 2011, when he planted a tree on the SU quad.

Eating one fruit is pretty great, but how do you eat 40 different fruits at the same time? He then replaced buds on an existing tree with shoots he had collected.

However, the trees also have a scientific use, he says, with “far-reaching implications for genetic engineering [and] biodiversity versus food monoculture”.

The process, he reveals, takes 8 to 9 years in total because each year sees twice the number of branches, with grafting. “Plus you get fruit all summer”.