Orchard People

[00:00:00] Introduction to Fruit Tree Planting
Hi everyone. If you're thinking of planting a fruit tree this year, you need to decide what type of fruit you want to grow. Are apples your thing? then, apple trees will be a priority for you. Are you a sweet cherry type of person?
Then you'll probably buy a sweet cherry tree. Or maybe you're all about pears or mangoes or apricots. Either way, most of the time, you're going to need to buy at least one tree of each type of fruit, a fruit tree, in order to successfully produce a harvest. You'll need to consider each tree's pollination requirements.
You might want to think about disease resistant varieties and lots of other factors. if you want to grow lots of different types of fruit, then you'll need lots of different types of fruit trees. And then, you're going to need to find a space for them all in your garden. And for many of us, that's the problem.
fruit trees are a little bit like puppies. They start small, but they can grow up to be pretty big. And if you plant a lot of fruit trees in a small space, your garden may, over time, become a tangle of fruit trees, all competing with each other for space and sunshine.
[00:01:19] Introducing the Tree of 40 Fruit
But what if it was possible to plant just one tree that will produce all sorts of different types of fruit?
Just imagine that. You may be able to go into your yard in July and pick some cherries. Then in August, the plums might be ready to eat. In September, you can enjoy juicy peaches and nectarines. Does that sound pretty good to you? this actually can happen, and my guest on the show today knows all about it.
[00:01:49] Meet Sam Van Aken
His name is Sam Van Aken. He's an award winning artist and an associate professor in the art department of Syracuse University, and Sam is the creator of the tree of 40 fruit that the trees that Sam creates aren't just productive, but they are also living art, and he's going to talk about that in the show today.
But before I bring Sam on the line, I would love to hear from you. Have you ever created a multigraft tree? Do you have one in your yard? Do you think it's a good idea to create trees that produce multiple types of fruit? Send us an email during the show with your thoughts about this topic or with a question or any other comment.
We look forward to hearing from you.
[00:02:36] The Art and Science of Grafting
So now, let's talk about the Tree of Forty Fruit project. Sam Van Aken, welcome to the show today. hi, thank you so much for having me here. I am so happy to have you here because frankly, I have heard about you lots and lots.
on the internet. And I've heard, originally I thought there was just one tree of 40 fruit, but there's quite a few of them. Tell me, how did this project start? How did you get involved in creating these amazing trees? It's funny. I started because I wanted to have one for myself and it actually started from a bunch of different places, but my great grandfather grafted fruit trees.
So I had never met him, but everybody in my family that talked about him, spoke about him as if he was a magician or had some magical capability. So, as I grew up on a farm, I went to art school, which was exactly the opposite of farming, but grafting always kept coming back to me and I knew that you could graft stone fruit together.
And then I started to wonder if I could control how the blossom appeared in spring, so I could essentially sculpt the blossom of a tree. So talk to me about that. So this, your tree of 40 fruit, I talk about it because I'm a fruity, kind of person and into fruit trees. I talk about it from the harvest perspective, but what do you see when these trees blossom?
What do they look like? Yeah, they start off pretty much with a white blossom. So those will be apricots and Asian plum varieties. I've been able to source some, Asian or red leaf plum varieties, that have pink blossoms. So they're white and then pink. And then after the Asian plums, then it's the peaches and European plums.
And the peaches have really dark crimson colors and pinks and whites. And so it's, I like to say variegated, but it's almost like little clouds or clusters of blossoms on each of the branches. So you are thinking very carefully as you decide where to put each branch. This is not just about throw the branches on the left, you put all the peaches on the right, you'll put all the apricots, and then just, you get what you get.
This is a piece of art. Yeah. And it totally, it completely arrived out of a absolute blunder, because I had grafted a bunch of varieties onto a tree. And then, it was like two springs later, one side of the tree blossomed and the other looked dead. I went. Oh, yeah, I'll probably have to consider that.
Wow. Okay, so the Tree of Forty Fruit, the first one. what fruit did it produce, what did you graft onto it, and where was that exhibited? Yeah, That's the funny part of how I got into this. So I have a art gallery in New York and they were asking me what I was working on.
And I rattled off all these art projects, probably about half a dozen. And then I said, yeah, and I'm grafting fruit trees and everybody perked up and were like, Oh, what is this?
[00:06:10] Exhibiting the Tree of 40 Fruit
And I exhibited them for the first time at the Armory Show in New York City in 2011. And the first tree was actually planted here on the Syracuse University campus.
Okay, so when you exhibited them, did you exhibit pictures of them or did you dig up the tree and move it into the exhibition? How did that work? Yeah, I took eight to 10 foot tall, one and a half inch caliper trees. And the way that I grow them in my nursery is I grow them in a square planter so when I exhibited them, I could just take the sides off and it's just this perfect mound of dirt. And it has the tree coming up. Oh my gosh. Now, how long do you keep those trees in pots for? Or do you eventually plant them elsewhere? Yeah, they all eventually get planted in the ground. usually what I'll do is they grow in the first planter for two to three years.
And then I'll root prune them and then transfer them to a larger container and gradually keep working up. And, with the tree of 40 fruit, I try to graft them so that there's 15 to 20 varieties on each tree before they get planted. But from what I've found with trees is once they get over a certain caliper size, so once they're over an inch or an inch and a half, it takes them longer to establish in the soil than if you started with just a sapling.
So essentially you are grafting them not with 40 fruit, not with 40 different types of varieties or different types of fruits. you're starting small. You plant the tree, you let it grow a bit, and then I guess over the years you're grafting on more and more branches to get to your perfect number of 40.
Is that correct? Correct. Yeah. Yeah.
[00:08:07] Grafting Techniques and Challenges
and so it involves, I don't know, this might be getting into the minutiae a little early, but, I use a lot of interstock varieties. so typically what I'll do is I'll graft the tree onto a root structure. let that grow two to three years. I'll head it off.
So prune out the center trunk, let it form four to five scaffolding branches. And onto those I graft interstock varieties. So those are varieties that are compatible with all of the other forage. fruit varieties. So we're going to go into more detail about this whole interstem. okay, we're going to, I want to know all about that.
We've got a couple of emails here that I'm looking at.
[00:08:55] Listener Questions and Expert Answers: rootstock, interstock, history and surprising downside of multi grafted trees
we've got the first one, Kamyar. My name is Kamyar from Brockville, Ontario. My question is which cultivar of rootstock works best for a multi grafted stone fruit cocktail tree? Okay. And which interstem is used when grafting stone fruits to each other?
So Kamyar is jumping ahead, but that's good. We want to know. Okay, typically what I use is a Myrobalan rootstock, and then I'll use a Santa Rosa plum. so Santa Rosa was developed by Luther Burbank, probably about the turn of the 20th century and he came up with these varieties that crossed Japanese plums with American plums and a Chinese plum. So they have this crazy genetic sort of history and they prove to be the most compatible. In Ontario, I might, the other tree that I'll use for colder climates is a Stanley plum, as the base tree on a Myrobalan rootstock and the reason for that is, out of all of the stone fruits, plum trees provide the best structure.
Okay, so let's just go through that with a little fine tooth comb. So you're doing a stone fruit tree, and you're starting with a plum tree as your base, as your rootstock, a plum tree. But you're going to be able to put on what other types of fruit on there, other than plums? peaches, other types of plums, apricots, almonds, cherries, nectarines.
So now is this magic or, so this is the question. So what is the role then of how you are going to connect this plum tree? How are you going to turn some of the branches into peach bearing branches? And you were talking about the interstem down there. Yeah. it took a while to figure out, but essentially I realized what I would do is invert the tree.
So Myrobalan rootstock is compatible with, it's probably the most compatible variety with plums. You can graft European plums to it. You can graft Asian plums to it. And so what I do after I get that form of the tree, that perfect vase shape. I'll take Myrobalan and cuttings and graft them onto the end of the tree.
And that's called an interstock. So that way I'll be able to graft other plums onto it. So the interstock is I'm trying to think of a metaphor. What is it? It's like the, highway that connects the two different things that you've got genetically, two different things. You're trying to put them together and they need something that will be friendly to both sides.
Correct. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. It's glue. It's the glue. Actually. That's great. It's the glue and using these grafting skills that you have developed, you are able to graft or merge together these branches that don't necessarily want to necessarily grow together and you're tricking them.
Integrate together. Yeah, exactly. we have a beautiful email here from Gilles. this is very nice. And, Gilles writes, Thanks Susan Poizner for turning me on to two good things. First is the fruit tree care course which was super interesting. I learned a lot about caring for my fruit trees. He's talking about my courses at orchardpeople. com. That is so nice.
Second, Is reality radio 101 I went to it for the first time to listen to one of your previous podcasts ever since then I have been listening to it. It's now my favorite radio station. So our producer is on the line as well. Gary. I'm wow. Yeah. Thank you for that.
And, I really appreciate that. Thank you very much. this station is a labor of love for Gary Gilles. So this is, he works so hard on the music, on the shows. So this is beautiful. And then he writes, I have four fruit trees in my backyard, and I just love the idea of one tree with all these varieties in the one tree.
I am listening avidly. So that's from Jill Cornwell, Ontario. Thank you so much for that beautiful email. So let's go back again. Now, we are talking about these beautiful tree of 40 fruits. You did the first exhibition. How did things start to get? More interesting after that. How did you start getting more commissions from that point?
Yeah, it was interesting because, I remember when I first exhibited them, I thought nobody's ever going to want any of these. So I made all these up there. I had a whole bunch of prints, that were for sale as well. I didn't sell any of the prints, but everybody wanted one of the trees. and as I first started, it was really about the blossom of the trees, right?
I was primarily concerned with that. as the project evolved, I started to get more interested in heirloom and antique varieties. Because I realized that the majority of varieties I had collected to that point were heirloom varieties. And from that, as people would ask me to create trees, I would research the varieties that historically grew in the area where they were.
I would source them and graft them onto their trees so that they became these agricultural histories of a region. that's beautiful, which means that every tree is going to be very unique, have its own character. and so if you were to do one of these trees here in Toronto, you would do your research.
What were, what are some famous Canadian, fruits? Now, I've noticed that you seem to be all about the stone fruits, that many of your tree of 40 fruit, projects. Are stone fruit projects. do you ever get apples and pears and another thing other types of fruits involved here? Oh, yeah. Yeah, I do. I also work with apples.
they have just historic apple varieties, but It took a while. to Create the same effect with apples that I could create with stone fruit, to get that pink and white blossom because there's only three or four three or four varieties of heirloom apples that are out there that you can get that have pink blossoms and the others you fill in with crab apple varieties.
So are you saying that apple pear trees are not just not going to have the same they're not going to pack a punch in the spring in the same way you don't get the same dazzling show of flowers I guess. Oh, they do now. Yeah, it took a while to get there. It took a while because I test out all of the varieties to see their blossom first, and then I record when they blossom in relationship to each other.
So apples and pears grow slower than stone fruit, and so it just took a while for me to Get enough information where I could make a tree like that. So we have an email here from Susan. There's another Susan out there. And Susan writes, wow, what a topic. Who would have thought it sounds too good to be true to have one tree bear all types of fruit.
How is that even possible? Is this tree patented? So very cool. Listening from Phoenix, Arizona. Is it too good to be true? Is there a downside to having a tree of 40 fruit or however many fruit? It depends on who you are. I remember, I, the great part about the project is that I get to go meet fruit growers who I think are very similar to artists and that they're people that spend way too much time alone.
So they think of very strange ideas. so as I would go out and talk to fruit growers and In central New York where I'm located, they would all, I would explain what I, was doing and they would all go, why would you want to do that? And what do you mean? Why would I want to do that?
And they're like, you're going to need to pick that tree 40 times. And I was like, yeah, that's the point. And so from a, from an agriculture perspective. From mass agriculture perspective, the downside is that it produces a limited number of fruit from June through, you can even pick fruit, beginning of October, right?
Whereas, industrial ag, they want to be able to harvest everything at one time, move through an orchard. it works out great if you have one in your yard because you can pick, at its peak, you can pick 20 pieces of fruit a week and have fruit for 12 or so weeks out of the year.
That's incredible. That sounds like fun. So we have another email here.
[00:18:56] Global Interest and Community Feedback
now this is from Janice. Janice writes, Why is Sam's work not really promoted worldwide? This is amazing. What an invention. I am hooked. So have you been promoted worldwide? Are you getting a little buzz from abroad as well?
Yeah, I guess so. I try not to, I don't know. I don't really do anything to promote it. I'd rather it be like, I've always thought it's better to be best kept secret than, be too much hype or something. I do have a couple of projects around the world and, every once in a while, some newspaper picks it up and talks about it.
here I've got a couple of comments on Facebook. I'm a member of a couple groups on Facebook where people talk about growing fruit trees. And there were some interesting comments when I talked about these fruit cocktail trees or multi fruit producing trees. I'll read you one or two of them. Daniel from Vallejo, California writes, Many of my trees are multi grafted.
One tree has almonds on the bottom, plum in the middle, and cherries, sweet cherries, on the top. so Daniel says it's not particularly practical, but it's a fun conversational piece.
Now, we also have a comment here from Marion from Northern California. So Marion has developed her grafting skills, and listen to what she's been up to. Marion writes, I have created a 450 in one apple, so one apple tree with 450 different types of apples on it. She's also created a 60 in one pear, so one pear tree with 60 different varieties.
She's created a 30 in one plum, a 30 in one citrus, an 8 in one avocado, an 8 in one persimmon. And she lives in Northern California. So Marion writes, my very first grafting experience was with my mother's two apple trees, a Fuji and a Golden Delicious apple. I cross grafted them and they were both successful.
And then I went further and read a lot about grafting online. Then I experimented on all of my mother's trees. Now, her backyard fruit trees are all multi grafted, neighbors and visitors are in awe. Her garden has become a conversation piece. By the way, she says, cause I said, wow, you have 450 apples on one tree.
Do you have every single apple variety in the world on there? And she says, no, by the way, there are over 2, 500 varieties of apples. I only grafted 450 of them on my apple tree. She says, the experiment is still ongoing and it is a great hobby. I love that. We've got to meet Marion. You guys, oh my god, you guys would be talking forever, the two of you.
The avocado tree, oh, that's dreamy. That would be great. Okay, we've got an email from, ah, an email from Joan who says, Hello, I just tuned in. What are stone fruits? Thanks.
[00:22:14] Exploring Stone Fruits and Grafting
Okay, they're all of the fruits that you might get with a pit, right? So those are peaches, plums, apricots, nectarines, cherries. And almonds fall into that, right?
Okay. Because their pit is sweet. Yep. So they've stone, that's why we call them stone fruits and they're all quite, they can be made compatible. Could you put an apple on your stone fruit tree? Would that ever happen? If I could, that would be patentable. No, unfortunately at the moment, no. although I am working with a Japanese biotech firm that has found a natural way to graft inter family plants.
So grafting, we're working on, right now it's a smaller scale, we're working with plants that you can graft an entire bouquet of flowers to. So that continuously grows. Interesting. So there's something about the biology of the apple tree and the biology of the stone fruit types of trees that the graft will never take.
Is that the thing? Correct. Yeah, it, at a base level it comes down to cellular structure. Okay. even with pome fruits, if you're to take pears graft to apples, They might be successful for a few years but eventually fail.
[00:23:45] Challenges of Growing Fruit Trees
Okay, so we have an email here from Howard from Columbus, Ohio. This is a very good question.
And, so Howard says, hello from Columbus, Ohio. Are these trees easy to maintain or not? How about the climate to grow them? Are they hardy? All right. they are, once they reach maturity, they're the same as any fruit tree. I don't do anything special with them. I do all organic sprays to keep away pests, fungus.
yeah, prune them very much the same way. and in terms of cold hardiness, they're going to be as hardy as the varieties that you graft onto them. So if I am placing a tree in a colder environment, I'm only going to select varieties that are zone four, zone five. And, the thing that I am finding is here in upstate New York with how erratic the weather's become in the past six or seven years, I actually have to grow varieties that are from a colder zone,
because one of the things that happens, it isn't necessarily the cold that kills the tree. It's just the successive frosts that kill the blossoms and you don't get the fruit, and there were several years where we had 75 degree weather in January or February, the trees would blossom and the frost would kill it, they'd kill all the fruit, and by using cold hardier fruit that blossoms later.
You can avoid that. So I, knew for a while, everybody was saying, Oh, we're going to be able to grow fruit from warmer weather. And it's just the opposite. I also want to comment on this question. So I've been growing fruit trees for over 10 years now, and all fruit trees need hands on care. All fruit trees get pest and disease problems.
All fruit trees need specialized pruning. It's not rocket science, but you need to know what you need to know, and you need to do what you need to do. So anybody who's naively going in and thinking, I'm going to get one of those trees, I'm not going to prune it, I'm not going to protect it from pests and disease, you may not have a positive experience.
yeah, and I know that with you, because we've talked earlier, you're going out there, you're maintaining the trees. There is a spray schedule that the gardeners, wherever they are, has to keep to protect these trees from pests and diseases. it's a commitment of fruit tree is like a baby.
It's a commitment like a puppy. As I said earlier, you don't get a puppy and not feed it and not walk it and pat it and give it loving. So there you go. one more email. This is a nice email from Kara. Kara says this gentleman is amazing.
I'm reading his bio and about information. What a read. Art and horticulture. This is amazing. Thanks for the show. So you're a very modest person. That's too kind. Very kind.
[00:27:02] Grafting Techniques and Compatibility
Okay, so Sam, Let's talk about grafting. Why does it even work? And we were talking a little bit about interstem grafting. how come it works? essentially, compatibility between fruit varieties depends on the cellular structure as you graft them together, right? After the graft heals, The cells essentially merge and the tree's vascular system is what feeds both the base tree and the variety that you grafted on top. So this is simple. It's simple, but you're fooling, are you fooling the tree? Because it's tricked into merging with a different, genetically different piece of tree.
but what it's happening is the mother tree or the rootstock is going to push food and water and all sorts of goodness into these branches because it's adopted them. It's adopted these branches. Yeah. Yep. and so the branches retain their DNA. So they will always produce the fruit that you got their root them from it's always the fruit isn't going to change.
Yeah, they all, they maintain their own genetic identity. I've heard a one story about a tree that it's a myth, but that's one tree once upon a time that reverted to the rootstock, but that's out of, you have to think millions and millions of trees that get grafted every year. That would be interesting.
Okay, so we've got some questions here. this is from MJ in Seattle. Have you noticed a correlation between the rootstock diameter and the overall health and productivity of the grafted tree? So you may want to explain the question while you answer it. Yeah, so I think if I understand the question correctly, So sometimes you're the root structure that you graft onto is going to have a different grow rate than the tree that's on top, like any tree that you graft on top of a root structure doesn't necessarily know it's been grafted onto a root structure, that isn't communicated from the roots to the tree itself.
As the tree ages and matures, the tree that you top work onto the root system, can sometimes be smaller than a root structure that bulges. working with stone fruit, I don't see that phenomena so much as I do with apple varieties. And to be honest, I don't think I've been growing apple varieties, I've been 11 years at this point, it hasn't become anything that I could measure at the moment. Okay, we've got another email here from Gwynne saying, This is an incredible show. I cannot believe that there is a tree that will do this. Does the world know? If not They are hearing it now on this radio show.
I even think that all of grafting is incredible because as most people know, or many people know that every single fruit tree that we buy or that we go and plant, most of them are grafted. They all have a rootstock, but instead of having branches, 10 different types of branches, They've all been grafted with one type of scion, That is one tree.
So let's say Mcintosh apple, you grab your rootstock, you grab your branch from the Mcintosh apple tree and the rest, the tree will produce Mcintosh apples, but it is pretty magical. Okay, another question here from William. Hello, can you pick and choose which fruits can grow on specific trees, or do all the trees bear the same fruit?
Thank you from Tuscan, Arizona. Good question. So people who are your customers, do you just give them a bog standard? This is your combination of fruits. You're going to get this, that, and the other, or do you customize to it, to their needs?
[00:31:22] Customization and Historical Projects
Oh, they're all customized. Yeah, they're all customized according to location.
And it becomes a huge research project because I'll pour back through libraries through city documents to find out farms that were grown there to see if I can find anything about the farms, that was published that gives you an indication of the varieties grown, look at agricultural reports.
from the 19th century, and you can piece together varieties that were popular at the time, local varieties that were really popular, and try to source those. So essentially, your trees are very customized, because they also have to be customized to the climate of that particular location.
do the people or organizations that, that commission you to do this, do they have certain needs? They'll say, you can do any fruits you want, except I need to know there's going to be this type of plum on there, I love that plum. Or do they just let you do what you want? Yeah, they usually let me do what I want, but then some people will have special requests.
They're like, but I'd really like to have apricots on there. And yeah, I'm working on a project now, actually for Arizona, that it's all about the Spanish mission peaches. there used to be the Camino Real that ran from Mexico City into New Mexico. And it's where the Spanish built missions, and it's where they first introduced peaches into North America.
Those peach seeds escaped and they were cultivated by Native Americans for two, three hundred years. And there's still traces of them. So we're trying to track down as many as we can to create one of those Spanish Mission peach trees. Amazing. It's a piece of history. It's edible history. got so many emails today, Sam.
I've got to say you have spurred people's imagination. Let's see what the next one is. Okay, we've got an email here from Eric. Hi, loving the show from Winnipeg, Manitoba.
[00:33:38] Indoor Fruit Tree Cultivation
Is it possible to grow one of these trees inside a commercial building? I have a small mall that I own and have a common, long, huge hallway entrance to various, smaller stores. I think it would be amazing to grow one of these inside, but is it possible?
And if so, what would I need to do? Thanks. Okay, this will be a challenge for him. you're going to have to drop the temperature below 45 degrees for 1000 hours. Or build a glass house where you can do that. And the reason for that is that fruit trees need to go dormant every year, right?
They need to have a certain amount of cooling hours. For most apple trees, say that's a thousand hours below 45 degrees. And at which point the buds reset and they get ready to blossom for the following spring. It's, a little tricky to do.
I've worked with a couple of people on doing it. yeah, so I knew how to do it. And the interesting thing that I read was that, In China, they're actually doing warehouse grown peaches where they can grow two crops of peaches by controlling the weather within the warehouse each year.
Wow. It's probably, yeah, it's crazy. It's crazy. Oh, nature isn't good enough for us anymore. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay, another question. This is from Bill. Can your guest please tell us about working with artists from the former communist regime?
[00:35:19] Art and Horticulture: A Personal Journey
That is so fascinating. Oh, yeah, that was really cool.
I have one of my college professors to thank for that because he made that introduction and essentially set it up where right after I got out of undergrad, I went to Poland and I just got dropped into Poland and this probably dates me, but this was the early nineties. So this is really a year or two after they transitioned from communism to capitalism.
And oh, it was like lawless to be honest. And, the thing that was really impressive to me is the artists that I worked with, they were considered dissident, which under the communist meant that they couldn't, by law, make art. so it was illegal for them to make art and what they did is they would have art exhibitions in living rooms in abandoned buildings and ran the risk that, if they were caught, they would have to do jail time. They'd have their passports revoked, and the government felt that art was so important that they tried to limit who could officially make it. And I think for somebody that was really young to see that, particularly somebody from the U.S., art isn't, we don't take it that seriously.
It's often dismissed and, yeah, to those communist governments, they saw the importance of it. and people put their lives and their livelihoods in danger just to be able to express themselves in that way with freedom. yeah, it's funny because I myself also spent some time in the former, what was once the Soviet Union.
And you talk about lawlessness. There were these bandits that would ride the, The, the trains and I was on a train and I was told I speak Russian. I was told whatever you don't speak, pretend you cannot speak because if they hear your accent, the bandits will get you and they will steal your money and whatever.
And it's oh my gosh, help. And then there was a chatty lady on the train who wanted to chat with me. And I'm like, I can't talk. I said in Russian. Can't talk, sore throat, can't talk. So yes, so crazy times, but there is so much about the former Soviet Union that is fascinating, and the attitude at the time about art, education, that kind of thing.
Let's see, we have a little email here from Peter. Peter, thank you for asking this. Peter asks, Hi, are there any of these trees in Canada? And if so, where? There's one that was started in High Park, a couple years ago. So it's still growing a little bit. And that's in Toronto, right? High Park in Toronto?
Yep. Yeah. COVID put a little bit of a delay on that. but yeah, hopefully within a couple of years. And how can people find and check out the other trees? do you have a map of your tree? If so, your different trees across, because you have them in all different states, right?
What are some of the states you can find those trees in? Oh, everywhere from Maine to Arkansas. And then there's a few, in California. So is it top secret or is there some map for tourists? Oh, no, I think I have a map on my website or somebody wants to email me. it's samvanaken. com.
Somebody wants to email, I can send a map. Yeah. Okay. So to your website, let's hear your website address. Oh, it's Sam Van Aken dot com. Okay. And if they want to email you, they can reach you at? On my website there's a email. A contact. Yep. Okay.
[00:39:19] Final Thoughts and Audience Questions
I have another Facebook comment that I wanted to share with you that I found interesting.
This is from Taylor from Tennessee. Now, Taylor is the admin of a Facebook group called Backyard Apple Growers. And this one, I found this very interesting. So Taylor writes, For those who do graft multi graft fruit trees, please do not share scionwood from them. Once I realized how prominent viruses are in fruits like apple, and how much scion is passed around from person to use to graft with, I stopped grafting multi variety trees.
There is too much chance to infect all your scion with the virus, and then you're giving it away to other people. I want to be able to send scion, or clippings, from my trees to friends, and it is much safer to segregate varieties to their own rootstocks. How do you feel about that? Oh, I completely agree.
The one thing that I would say to that is, Before even grafting, be really careful of where you're getting that scionwood from, right? I realize it's terrible to say, but I don't do anything through scion exchanges. I use all stock that I get through the USDA.
So as a university researcher, I have access to the USDA germplasm. I'll either get it from there or the other place that I get it from is from UC Davis. So University of California, Davis offers a program called Foundation Plant Services, which provides virus index stock. And it is true, there's certain stone fruit viruses that are in Canada as well as the U. S. There's tons of apple viruses. And I make sure that I get them all from play from trees that have been indexed before grafting them together, and then once grafted together, I still don't give out any of my scionwood. That's fair enough. So you just don't you don't want to take that chance.
One more quick question I have to know you're from a farming family. What do they think of all of this? It's funny, my grandmother, before she passed away, she absolutely loved it, because it was her father that was the inspiration for it.
And the other thing is that, one of the biggest influences I had in making the project, was She had this enormous black cherry tree. It's a farm. So like every farm has this enormous cherry tree and, her husband, every summer would spend spend weeks during harvest season, trying to turnbuckle this tree, the branches, to try to hold it together so that it wouldn't split and fall apart. And I think, between her husband, her, her father, she really loved it before she died. So they're proud of you. Even if you did leave farming as a Oh, no, it's like I came back to farming.
That's well there. Yeah. So they were like, ha. You're a good boy. Now. Awesome. One more email from Jake. hi from Knoxville, Tennessee. Sounding great here. My question. I am intrigued with Sam's art background. Is there any of his art for sale? If so, where can I look at it and possibly purchase it?
That's nice. So where can we see other? Yeah. Yeah. Oh, most of it's on my website. So yeah, if you want to take a look and send me an email. Oh, awesome. Yeah. Also, there's artworks on Ronald Feldman gallery. Okay. So we're all going to get off this call right now, we're going to get off the radio show.
We're going to go check out your website and, everybody can get a memento from this beautiful conversation that we've had today. Yeah. everybody asked really great questions today, and we had lots of participation. Oh, my gosh. So thank you, everybody, for sending in your emails. And Sam Van Aken, thank you so much for coming on the show.
Oh, thank you for having me here. Yeah, it's always fun talking to you. Yeah, we're going to be talking again. We will be talking again in the future, you and I. So thank you so much. All right. And for the listeners, that's it for the show today.