September 14, 2012
The Science of Pomato Plants and Fruit Salad Trees Mad science or madly delicious? Perhaps you’ve heard of the fruit salad tree, and thought to yourself, “Someone’s messing with me.” It’s the real deal, even if that image is Photoshopped to all get-out. Growers have been creating incongruous fruit tree combos for ages now, using grafting techniques to produce trees with, for example, the roots of a lemon and branches that produce both grapefruits and oranges. The method behind the madness isn’t all that bizarre. Tree grafting has been a common practice in China since at least 2000 BC, and seems to have spread from there. In agriculture, the technique usually involves taking a plant selected for its sturdy and resistant root system (the “rootstock”) and joining it with a plant selected for its fruits, leaves, or branches (the “scion”). Once the vascular systems of the two plants join, you have a result with all the benefits of both contributors; in the case of the fruit salad tree, the practice is taken to something of an extreme. That’s just a simplified explanation, of course, and there are some limitations. Read on before attempting to splice an oak that doles out watermelons, lest ye be disappointed. —MN

The Science of Pomato Plants and Fruit Salad Trees

Mad science or madly delicious? Perhaps you’ve heard of the fruit salad tree, and thought to yourself, “Someone’s messing with me.”

It’s the real deal, even if that image is Photoshopped to all get-out. Growers have been creating incongruous fruit tree combos for ages now, using grafting techniques to produce trees with, for example, the roots of a lemon and branches that produce both grapefruits and oranges.

The method behind the madness isn’t all that bizarre. Tree grafting has been a common practice in China since at least 2000 BC, and seems to have spread from there. In agriculture, the technique usually involves taking a plant selected for its sturdy and resistant root system (the “rootstock”) and joining it with a plant selected for its fruits, leaves, or branches (the “scion”). Once the vascular systems of the two plants join, you have a result with all the benefits of both contributors; in the case of the fruit salad tree, the practice is taken to something of an extreme.

That’s just a simplified explanation, of course, and there are some limitations. Read on before attempting to splice an oak that doles out watermelons, lest ye be disappointed. —MN

11:17am  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/ZV1L5yTN0ZTz
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Filed under: fruit salad tree trees plants grafting botany agriculture pomato 
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