Frankenstein Trees

2024 Author: Gavin MacAdam | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 13:38

Imagine a tree with about 40 fruits? True, it's great: he came up, wanted an apple - picked it off one branch, wanted a plum - stretched out his hand to another branch, and on the third, a peach was waiting. And what would be the saving of space in the garden! Planted 4-5 trees and collect various fruits from them. Do you think this is impossible? As it turned out, not only is it possible theoretically, but has already been created in fact

Professor Sam Van Aken probably also considered it more a dream than a reality. But, however, after participating in an exhibition in 2008 with hybrids of vegetables he developed, he decided to come to grips with an attempt to create unusual trees on which up to 40 types of fruits could grow. Why 40? According to Professor Sam Van Aken, this is the optimal number of various species and varieties that can be grafted onto one “donor” tree. More can easily ruin the whole experiment.

Currently, the scientist has managed to grow 16 unusual trees. They grow in the centers of large cities such as New Jersey, California, New York, surprising residents with their flowering and fruiting in the spring and summer. By the way, in winter and autumn, trees are almost indistinguishable from other, ordinary trees. And a little about why the trees are so strangely called: the name Frankenstein trees were given due to the fact that they are collected in pieces, just like the "works" of the well-known Frankenstein. The official name of the new "variety" of trees created by the scientist does not yet exist.

Van Aken's "laboratory" was, of course, in the open air on the territory of one of the experimental stations in the United States. On the main trunk and branches of the "carrier" tree, he grafted "donor" branches in one of two ways: split grafting and kidney grafting. At the same time, in order for the branches to take root better, the scientists used copulation, carefully connecting the parts of the experiment together. Donor trees were not taken all in a row: as a real artist, Aken carefully selected only those that bloom one after another, so that the trees he created would please with constant, without interruption, flowering in spring, and then also constantly bearing fruit in summer and autumn.

Out of 250 tree species, only 40 varieties and varieties were selected. And the advantage was given to the stone ones. This is due to the fact that it is the stone fruits that are best combined with each other, and they are also distinguished by their diversity both during the fruiting period and during their active flowering. By the way, cherries were the most troublesome during the vaccination for Van Aken. But with almonds, from which he expected the most whims, oddly enough, there were no problems. Plums with apricots were also easily planted. On average, it takes about 5 years to create one “masterpiece tree”.

At the same time, Professor Van Aken takes care of all his experimental trees on his own, not trusting anyone outside to carry out vaccinations or spring pruning, and form a crown. He performs all these operations independently in accordance with his ideas about beauty and the need to add one or another type or variety of stone fruits. And to this day, Sam is trying to improve the composition of varieties on new trees.

Over time, the professor wants to create several open-air museums, consisting of such beautiful trees. In addition, his plans include preserving and developing old, unfairly almost forgotten, stone fruit varieties.

"There are many more varieties in the world than one type of apricot, several types of plums and peaches, which you see on the shelves of your local store every day," Van Aken shares his opinion. And he's right.