By RACHEL LANE
D.C. Correspondent WASHINGTON, D.C. — The farming practice of grafting has been used by Sam Van Aken – artist and professor of sculpture at the College of Visual and Performing Arts at Syracuse University – to make dozens of unique trees. The Trees of 40 Fruits started when Van Aken remembered his grandfather teaching him about grafting in his orchard. Each unique tree is started in a nursery. When they grow too big to easily move from one location to another, the trees are planted. One of the trees was exhibited in Washington, D.C., in October as part of a new exhibit focused on combinations of science, engineering, art and design. About 48 exhibits were chosen to be part of the first ACCelerate: ACC Smithsonian Creativity and Innovation Festival at the National Museum of American History. “My grandfather had shown me grafting when I was a kid and I thought it was the greatest thing in the world, like something out of a storybook,” Van Aken said. As an artist, he started grafting vegetables first, but about 10 years ago, grafted his first fruit tree. It continues to be a learning process, he said. Certain types of fruit trees will only graft to other types of fruit trees. One tree was in full bloom on only one side at a time, making the tree appear lopsided. “It’s all been a comedy of trial and error,” he noted. Van Aken said there are some varieties he has found that he can’t get to graft. In other cases, the grafting might work one way, but not the other – an apricot can be grafted to a peach tree, but a limb from a peach tree cannot be grafted to an apricot tree. A cherry-plum hybrid from the Middle East can only be grafted to a cherry tree. Grafting has been used in orchards for centuries. If a farmer wanted to take a fruit tree out of the tree’s climate, he or she could graft the branches onto the root system of a tree that is native to the area. The rootstock, the interstice – which forms the trunk or central leader of the tree – and the lateral branches from which the fruit grows can all be different trees. Some farmers graft a fruit tree with blossoms to attract pollinators into the top of the tree. The pollinators can then cause the entire tree to have more fruit. In the spring, the trees’ branches blossom at different times and with different colors. In the fall, the fruit starts to ripen in mid-July and the tree produces still different fruit in September. When he started the process, Van Aken said farmers he spoke with thought it was a crazy idea. He would have to go out and harvest fruit 40 different times from each tree – but he has more trouble keeping fruit on the trees, as people in the communities where the trees grow will pick it. He currently has about 20 trees planted in different parts of the United States. The largest orchard is four trees near Thompson Point, Maine. The next step is to start his own orchard as a genetic bank for heirloom varieties of fruit. He has almost 300 genetic samples collected already. Some of the heirloom varieties he uses are millennia-old. Unlike most fruit produced today, with a focus on production and disease resistance, the heirloom varieties were bred for taste, he said. The heirloom varieties will disappear if people can't try them. Ben Knapp, spokesman for the ACCelerate Festival, said the tree was a beautiful example of art and science coming together. Part of the purpose of the festival was to encourage the attendees to collaborate with others. It encouraged researchers to cross boundaries and work together. The different universities represented came together out of a desire to collaborate. The exhibits showed that the line between creativity and innovation is not a clear boundary. Other exhibits focused on a ceramic water filter for use in South Africa; the ecology of tropical rainforest canopies; heavy-lifting drones that drop pods to map the ocean; robotic insects that might be used for search and rescue after a natural disaster; and dozens of other. More information about the festival can be found at http://acceleratefestival.com More information about the Trees of 40 Fruits project can be found at www.treeof40fruit.com |
