How one tree grows 40 different kinds of fruit | Sam Van Aken
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- čas přidán 21. 08. 2024
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Artist Sam Van Aken shares the breathtaking work behind the "Tree of 40 Fruit," an ongoing series of hybridized fruit trees that grow 40 different varieties of peaches, plums, apricots, nectarines and cherries -- all on the same tree. What began as an art project to showcase beautiful, multi-hued blossoms has become a living archive of rare heirloom specimens and their histories, a hands-on (and delicious!) way to teach people about cultivation and a vivid symbol of the need for biodiversity to ensure food security. "More than just food, embedded in these fruit is our culture ... In many ways, these fruit are our story," Van Aken says.
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Protect this man. We need these types of people to preserve our agriculture.
This is the coziest TED Talk venue I've seen. Is this like a TED Express or something?
I've always thought grafting was bizarre, and almost otherworldly. I never thought it could be done to the extent he managed. Impressive
It's nice to get an update on this. Saw his talk a few years ago.
Me to it was interesting didn't know this was possible .
How is it a update if you already seen it then..?
@Jeffery Jefferyson i actually tried once but i had some pests in the soil so i stopped the experiment.
@@Pro_Vs_Con it is an update on the state of the tree and on what the artist has been doing ever since the first talk.
@Jeffery Jefferyson i was growing different types of citrus fruits in order to prepare for one multi fruit tree and they were still in the first year. I had put them on my balcony for a while and some kind of fly larvae got into the soil. After i had taken them back into my flat, the flies started spreading to all my other plants and i had to get rid of half of my existing plants and all of my citrus plants. I'm going to attempt it again at some point in the future but some of my plants are rather dear to me and I'm going to make sure that they are safe the next time by inoculating their soil with other organisms that kill off these kinds of fly larvae and other pests without harming the plant itself.
Those trees have been around for years!! They are called 'fruit salad' trees here in Australia and can be purchased easily. Really great way of getting the public more involved in how our food is produced and may help to get people to become more earth friendly when growing food!! If we don't change our farming habits we are going to destroy this planet and ourselves at the same time!!!!
I wish this was a norm where im from would LOVE to have a tree like that in my yard! I'm from arizona and pretty much everyone has lemon or orange trees here but I never see much else
I never heard of fruit salad tree.
You are right, the public should get more involved. It's amazing what's possible nowadays.
@@chicken42o Same here, in Phoenix there are far too many trees with inedible oranges.
Not quite to the same degree though lol. Id love a fruit salad tree. You can multi graft citrus too. And apples with pears if i recall correctly
@@chicken42o You could get a lime, grapefruit, blood orange, and other citrus tree growing. Maybe even try getting a Eucalyptus/guava/clove/allspice/bay rum tree to take [family Myrtaceae].
Where I live in Winston-Salem, NC, those could be no more than cool but stunted houseplants living out their days in flower pots.
See about growing coffee, cocoa, pineapples, and mangoes where you are as well. Just keep it all mulched and moist.
Don't lose sight of the fact that you can do things that a lot of us can't. Stay cool, my friend.
This 40 fruit tree is in my opinion the perfect crop for a future Mars colony. Many different fruits in one place, perfect!
Yeah it's definitely on the list
How. You know how much dirt you need for a tree? It would be more like lettuce or something
A Tree Grows In Brooklyn, Mars.
Someday.
but in the end it is easier to harvest similar fruits so it will probably just be mono-culture.
Hydro/Aquaponics, prob hydro, easier to maintain and less weight needed (not fishes). The only problem this have is upfront costs but that's not important in space.
Dear Sam,
What a fabulous & inspiring story of how art created a connection to our story as a people of many cultures, of different ethnicities & how food & recipes, through all the “lost” varieties of fruit! I was SO excited to listen to you explain how you came up with the idea, how it evolved & how you discovered a way to experiment with bringing these vignettes together to create a stunning mosaic. The Tree of 40 Fruits is a legacy you created, & I’m quite certain you’ll continue to inspire future generations to go on to experiment in new ways! I did not want your talk to end.
One last point I want to share with you, as you’re likely one of the few people who would be interested in this. Years ago, in a used book shop in New England, I found an old book, pulled it out, dusted it off, & I guessed no one had taken the time to look at it in many years. I sat down on the floor, & I began looking through the pages of this crimson book that captured my attention. It was about the MULTITUDE of varieties of apples in the 19th century. It was meant as a guide for the people who kept apple orchards. There are beautiful colorised photos, as well as diagrams, & of course discussions of grafting. Not only is the information in the book invaluable, the outside is decorative & inviting. I treasure it. After watching your talk today, I hold it even closer to my heart. THANK YOU for all you’ve done & will no doubt do in the future. I wish you every success, & as you indicated, you’ve inspired so many others to consider what a plum tastes like that was brought from Italy in the 1800s! How fascinating!
Warmest regards,
Belle 🦋
What a beautiful note! I hope he reads it!
i like people like you who has heart for agriculture
I love how you embrace the story, history and culture of many of those now extinct varieties. You remind us that we benefit when we preserve an outstanding individual variety, even if it can't be industrially grown. Industrial agriculture has arguably done so much good, but it came at a price.
You sir are a genius and a legend, as a fellow gardener with a love of fruit trees, i understand exactly what you are saying. Well done on your success and I hope your ideas keep expanding infinitely.
I would rather have a talk with this gentleman than with any Holywood celebrity.
I rather meet Dany Devito in person thank you very much
Whtas name of this tree
I agree
I guess you're not like the other girls then (:
*I'm 12 and this is deep*
This has got to be one of the most beautiful endeavors I’ve ever seen. I want to laugh and cry at the same time. Bravo. -Phill, Las Vegas
I cant wait until the park in New York is complete so i can go visit!
Wow! This is so moving for me! I was the coordinator of my local community garden in Clinton Hill Brooklyn where I haphazardly planted a peach pit one fall...and got a tree next spring. A sapling, but a tree. She grew for about 5 years before they chopped her down. Long enough to get some delicious little peaches. She was chopped down because there was a No Trees casting shadows right in the middle of the garden policy...fair enough. I also worked for the NYRP(restoration project) through Americorps fixing the parks in Washington Heights and the surrounding area. NYC really does have a lot of nature for those looking for it. I've never been to Governor's island, born and raised new Yorker, Typical! But, now that I'm in LA, as soon as I get back, I'm going to see that orchard! Sounds beautiful! 🙏💕✌🏼🌈👏👍🏼👍🏼
This is so incredible!! I love that you did this!!! And I love that TED gave him the platform to let us know!!!
I lived with my father who is really inclined with planting trees that bear fruits. Ever since, I imagined a tree that produces different types of fruits. Thank you for making an kmaginayion come true.
this man needs a bigger stage!
PHO BOSS no kidding
@@notleoso figuratively and literally
I love this man's voice, I got nothing more to say
You screw with nature you lose nature
Guys like this are actually saving humanity in a very unexpected way. Bless you brother.
This is touching! A working landscape that human can feel life again.
This man is brilliant to think of this tree. this style of tree could possibly save people's lives and look beautiful.
The way this is shot makes it look like a fake TED talk haha
I love this science
Trathaal like a parody
Messed Up Hina exactly! Haha
its not science its called farming, most farmers can do this know those techs
Gamers Land dude, farming has everything to do with science
@@ugurceldir get an education. Farming requires science
What a lovely project. It's fascinating how various plants can be combined this way.
His laugh at his own jokes is so cute and infectious
What a fabulous project.... awe-inspiring and just, well, inspiring! Society has moved so far from the land and nature, we need more visionaries like this man.
Amazing graftwork!
It's the first time to watch so many kinds of fruit on a tree, amazing.
This guy is awesome. Syracuse is my home. Our apples are dank. That is all.
*40 fruit! That's amazing*
Beautiful... the Greenman.. is proud of you....🌳
This reminds me of Yoshi's Story, the Happy Tree xD
It boggles my mind how this works tho, amazing.
ഇങ്ങേര് വേറെ ലെവൽ ആണ്.... Truly an inspiration...
Excellent! Thank you.💖
Few months ago i saw this tree with 40 fruits on youtube.I forgot to subscribe to that channel.That was done by grafting.That is the most beautiful fruit tree..I subscribed to channel like TREE MENTOR creating a beautiful hibiscus plant with 3 different colors of flowers in one plant.I will try to experiment on that next summer.Thank you for showing us the person who actually did that beautiful creation of that first FRUIT TREE WITH 40 DELICIOUS FRUITS IN ONE TREE THROUGH THE PROCESS OF GRAFTING.
Interesting and important video on the cultivation of amazing fruit trees, each yielding dozens of different fruit types.
ok there were certain things not properly addressed in this video:
1. what was the reason for grafting.
People knew for much longer that all you need is to plant the seed. And if you want to avoid most of the interference, just plant whole bunch of them from the same tree close by. That way, bees will take care of pollination between same types and that's it.
However while being in cultivation business (always taking seeds from the biggest and juiciest or more colorful or whatever was desired fruits), people have soon realized trades offs.
Some trees like apricots were desired and sweet and mushy, but they were at the same time very winter sensitive and trees were dying in too cold winter or if few frost days hit the tree while it was blooming.
And some others like late autumn apples were much more resilient, but that fruit was more sour and less demanded
So why did we start grafting trees?
Simply to get the best of the 2 worlds - to have those best sweet fruits on resilient trees.
So a farmer would take the young sapling of a tree (1-2 years old) from a resilient type and early in the spring (just before it will start shooting leaves), they will remove whole top of it and replace with a single branch from the desired fruit tree. It has to be done properly, as there is only small window for success. After that branch will become more or less the only remaining "parasite" which will be now supported by the mother trunk. And actually, one will know if it was successful the very same summer (as the branch should shoot leaves).
So such tree is now much more resilient during winter while bearing nice fruit during summer.
2. the disadvantages of multi grafted tree.
There are more rules to be followed in grafting than just observing vegetation period of the tree.
During countless attempts it would established that some combinations do better than the others. Especially if there was partial compatibility, trunk and the tree crown could coexist much better. It is because despite trunk will accept the top branch from the other tree for its own, it will still use its own biology to feed it or cut it of for winter. so put contradicting things together and the crown will suffer (it will bloom late or too little, so the fruit will not be as good). Hence there are additional rules and recommendations what goes well together and what not.
So on such multi-grafted tree there is a really high chance to have some fruits impeded by not only trunk but also the middle branches, so yes they will bloom and bear some fruit, but it will not always meet its full potential.
Additionally a four season tree is setup to have period of flowers for 1 month or so. Then it will take anywhere between 1-4 months to get fruits ready and after that it is done for the year and once it will start feeling winter, it will slowly retract back to roots shedding all leaves.
A multi-grafted tree has both blooming and fruity periods to extremes, which leads to higher demands of such tree (it will need more water, minerals, sun and other things to be able to deal with these extended timing).
And lastly, such tree can actually attract illnesses and pests combined for all types of fruits it is bearing together.
The bottom line is that given the effort and probability of problems that such tree can have, it is not suited for any commercial agricultural means.
I've got two apple trees in the front yard with five varieties on each tree. I'd love one with forty like yours.
This is one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen 😍
Wow so interesting!
But bees maybe confused. 😅hahaha
They gone cross pollinate like crazy
Yeah don't try to grow those seeds 😂
@@TheeInjun Hahaha okay thanks
They will high 40times.
@@TheeInjun why?
Always enjoy watching this guy painting with fruit!!!!and he looks younger now than he did 7 years ago!!! hilarious!!!
Yayyyyyyy.... Thank you sir you are a saint
Sam Van Aken, You are my hero. I will do that one day for sure.
I'm pleasantly amazed by the attention this received.
I was just on Governors Island and was wondering about all those farms! I’ll have to go back and see his trees!
The tree in the first picture is at Syracuse Unversity. I know this cause I walk past it at least 3 times a day. I knew there was something special about that tree because it had different colors of flowers during spring. Very pretty!!
It nice for every one to know it
I am thrilled to hear about this trees with lots of fruits. I have a garden and some trees of different fruits. Having a vegetable and fruit garden is one of the best adventures I have done in my life.
Thats cool i grew up on governors island when it was a coast guard base. Nice to see they are doing something with it.
I've been waiting for an update on this tree
Very Creative and Important Work!👌 History Food and Art! ✨✨✨
Can we get a cannabis plant with 40 different strains
Lol
Only if Marley would be alive today.
Yes actutally you can
The future is now my guy
fawwwwwk i so wish!!!!! or like a really high THC% type cannabis. where i live I've seen as high as 34% isn't that crazy?? but... what if it could be like let's says 50%
I live in Syracuse and there are these trees all around SU campus and a tree patch next to the local skate plaza/ art museum. Most do these fruits suck tbh but some of them are a really great fucking treat
WOW & WOW thats totally amazing
My family used to be farmers until very recently (10 years ago) every single generation used to farm, even we still do but we do not have cattle anymore, only plants.
We've been living a lumberjack style life all while having actual jobs in the current society
After moving to the city i've noticed how alienated urban people are from nature and agriculture, its crazy and the scary part is... in most cases they think they're right.
Why would they listen to some dumb farmer guy with no education beyond high shool right? who cares what he thinks he's dumb anyway - WRONG, people form the country side know way mre than you think
i mean... isnt it common sense that a person who lives in a certain environment would know how it functions?
Its something i've noticed trough the past 3 years of living in the city and its really worrying, because it reflects on how organisations handle climate change and pollution as well.
Right? Like they don't even know how much cooling a simple stand of trees gives! Or how much warmer a windbreak of furs is. Why are they fussing about fractions of a degree of cooling from banning cars when just PLANTING TREES will give upto 10 degrees of cooling for the area?
Just imagine if earth have more of such person #inspiration
Let me get this right we have this technology and they are still people that go hungry
This is ancient technology, and I mean thousands of years. If you knew the waste that goes on in commercial fields, it would drive you mad. About a quarter of the food is wasted in the field because it is not perfect. More is wasted along the way. Having pick your own, and home preservation training, maybe centers might do wonders.
This has nothing to do with efficient crop production, it's kinda opposite thing.
I planted 2 dwarf peach trees 2 years ago specifically to graft onto. I have never done this before and tried to graft rainier cherries onto it last spring and it failed. I will try again next spring. My goal is to have peaches, cherries, and plum on them some day. Hopefully I can figure it out.
For our information, so magical agriculture for the future
admirable
Beautiful
The best video ever GOD BLESS you
If you want plenty of land in a city please try Detroit, Michigan. I don't live there anymore but that would be a perfect place to plant these trees. Anyone from Detroit out there ?? You can set up a go fund me on this and make this city blossom again.
Terrific work. The hard work pays off.
i love his fruittrees
Why i didn't know from this story until now?
This is the most interesting idea and a great life’s work. Incredible. Thanks.
What a great man.
This is quite lovely. Really nice. I would kind of like one of those trees, now. I never knew that such a thing was possible!
Now this is what I call serious Job Burden😁
I wanna be friends with this guy
Marvelous! Thank you!
What a great idea
Legend for time.
Love to graft.
Food security. Yup. That's what we are facing from only having 1 main kind of banana and why artificial banana tastes so unlike a banana to us. It was a banana, but went extinct because there was no resistance against a disease.
There's another one going around for our species of banana too
Yep, it really is scary regarding food security. I know there are places constantly working on new strains of vegetables, but I'm not so sure about bananas, apart from they made a version of plantains for parts of Africa to make them mold resistant, and out of fear very few wanted to grow them because they didn't understand gmos. Pretty sad really
Anyone else thinks he looks a lot like Mark Ruffalo as bruce banner?
My sons high school, Hudsons Bay in Vancouver WA has an active horticulture program - would love to this tree experiment propagated through our public school systems.
really inspiring thank you !!
Ooohhh...thanks for this idea for my future garden...got to study about plant propagation first though
now thats a cool tree ! :)
the information about the seeds look wrong, any tree can propagate by seeds, but it take a long time, thats why grafting is faster, also the base tree can help to plant the tree in different climates and etc
Speed is not the issue. The problem is that a tree grown from seed will produce a fruit that is different from the one the seed was taken out of. And whats worse, if you plant a dozen trees from the same source, you will have an orchard with a dozen different fruits. There will obviously be some resemblense, but after several generations you might end up with something that is completely unrecognizable from what you started with. Cross polinating plants work exactly like humans in that regard.
normalmente não comento em videos do youtube mas desta vez eu tinha de o fazer e o meus parabens, é um trabalho magnifico com um impacto que poucos podem conseguir medir.
Curious what rootstock was used?
I’ve tried grafting cherries onto peaches and vice versa but didn’t work out.
Great question. I'd like to know that too.
If I recall correctly the rootstock was some kind of plum
@Max Raider Do you have any online resources you would recommend?
They're incompatible. Peaches can be grafted to peaches, cherry to cherry, etc.
Would love to see the tree in full bloom
The Tree of Life
I'm going to do this with silvacultre
Like ~ food forests, trees & veggies
I want fresh fruit forests more common than bodegas
There's a ted talk about a guy in India who 'junglefies' the city to bring back the push of the city
My great grandpa used to grow grapes in his back yard from Sicily but sadly its not alive today. the same thing happened with my grandpas tomatoes he used to save the seeds every year for 40 years but it's also not alive today.
Now I have at least one place that I would like to visit in US.
excellent speaker
Thankyou SAM 🌲 💯🍒🍏🍎🍒
Humanity history and Natural Heritage and living art
I feel as if their rooms keep getting smaller every time idk
Reap Algeria their
Awesoooome!!!
Wow awesome speech
Amazing guy
I haven’t even succeeded on grafting just one tree lol
well, this is the fruitiest ted talk ive ever seen xD
This was dope.
I love this!!
How one tree grows 40 different kinds of fruit: Grafting.
Now this is really cool