What is the Frankenstein tree?

Frankenstein's Tree Isn't As Scary As Its Name

Have you heard of Frankenstein’s tree? Yes, it exists, but it is surely not as you imagine it. It is not a terrifying tree that can be used as a Halloween decoration, if not a combined project between art, conservation and agriculture. In fact, it is a tree capable of giving a total of 40 different varieties of fruit.

You are probably wondering how this is possible. To clarify the doubts related to this curious vegetable, we are going to explain to you in this article what is the Frankenstein tree and how was it created. Without a doubt, it is an extremely interesting project that shows that human beings are also capable of creating good things for the world and the environment.

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What is the Frankenstein tree?

The Frankenstein Tree was created by art teacher Sam Van Aken

Although its name comes from the famous and horrifying monster Frankenstein, its appearance turns out to be much more beautiful. If they look alike, it’s in the way they were created. Just as Frankenstein’s monster was made up of different parts of different human bodies, also this tree has parts of several species, 40 to be exact, which have been joined by grafting. For this reason, it is also known as “the 40 fruit tree”.

This project was started by Sam Van Aken, Professor of Arts at Syracuse University, New York, in 2008. This work transcends art, conservation and agriculture. In fact, the creator himself says that it is “a living capsule of biodiversity” whose objective is to raise awareness of the loss of diversity of the fruits that we are used to consuming today.

The tree with 40 fruits

It is no coincidence that Van Aken chose a total of 40 fruits. According to him, “in Western religions, it is used as an unquantifiable number, as a synonym for crowd”. With this election, he wanted to make humanity aware of the loss suffered by food diversity. The art teacher points out that “almost all of our fruit trees were brought here by immigrants, so it’s not just about food: our culture is linked to these fruits, which are our history”.

About a century ago, some 2,000 different varieties of peaches, 2,000 different types of plums, and about 800 species of apples were grown in the United States alone. But today only a small fraction of all this variety remains, many of which are threatened by ongoing industrialization in agriculture. Although many different types of fruit were very popular in their time, they have disappeared because they have deteriorated too much during the processes that take place in large-scale agriculture, such as long-distance transport or mechanical fruit harvesting.

This message that Van Aken wants to convey to us goes beyond the ecological point of view. This significant loss of food biodiversity in agriculture can be very dangerous. Monocultures, that is, crops in which there are few varieties of each species, can be very convenient for large-scale farming, but also very risky. If anything, be it a disease or a pest, happens to just one of these varieties present, the impact on the food supply will be monumental.

About this, Van Aken explained a very curious anecdote in an interview: “After several years since the beginning of the project, they told me that I had one of the largest collections of fruit varieties in the east of the United States, which, given that I am an artist, seems terrifying to me. In addition, It turns out that some of these varieties of the professor are very rare. In fact, some were created specifically to work out a recipe.

How was the Frankenstein tree created?

The Frankenstein tree is also called the 40 fruit tree.

Source: Wikimedia Author: Sam Van Aken courtesy of Ronald Feldman Fine Art https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Tree_of_40_Fruit_-_tree_75_-_DPB_010.jpg

You are probably wondering how he managed to create the tree or trees of Frankenstein, since there are several copies of it. As we have already mentioned above, He did it by transplant. This technique has been known since antiquity and consists of growing a piece of plant on the trunk of another. To be successful, the two tissues must be brought together so that the graft can indirectly absorb nutrients and grow.

This produces a tree that can bear as many flowers and fruits as there are successful grafts. This technique is normally used to expand and perpetuate more productive, resistant or palatable fruit varieties. In reality, a graft is really a natural way to clone a tree, since it is a fragment of it. On the other hand, this technique also has an adaptive function. Species that have some difficulty growing in certain environments can survive if they are grafted onto the trunk of a better-adapted related species.

It should be noted that this method does not have unlimited possibilities. It is essential that the trunk and the fragment to be grafted are of the same botanical genus for this technique to succeed. In the case of Van Aken, the 40 varieties belong to the genus plum. This genus includes cherry, plum, peach and apricot trees, among other species. Each of them has thousands of different varieties.

View of a lemon tree with grafted orange

Related article:

What are grafts and what are they used for?

For most of the year, the Frankenstein tree looks just like any other tree. However, when spring comes, it begins to bloom with various shades other than white and pink. It is in summer that the greatest spectacle is given, because from the flowers come 40 different varieties of apricots, peaches, cherries, plums and nectarines.

To create such a tree, Van Aken took several years. Grafting is usually done in the spring. However, to check whether the process failed or succeeded, you have to wait for a whole year. Until two or three years have passed, the grafts do not begin to bear the first fruits, and it may take up to eight to complete a 40-fruit tree.

What a curious project! What did you think?

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