Saturday, Jul. 26, 2014 - 2:34 p.m.
The Tree of Strife
******************
" Man Grafts 40 varieties of edible stone Fruits
onto One Tree"- food crisis solved
I saw this a few days ago
and harked back to
an old man I met when i was a kid
he was a college professor
or researcher of some kind
he had an apple tree in his back yard
he had grafted a dozen typos of apples on
not 40 like this guy with stone fruits
I saw a single apple tree in the autumn
with yellow, red, green.
pippins, delicious, macs, russets
everything in apples represented
He told me that it took many years to do
a certain % of the grafts didn't take
some varieties would take
than poop out after a few years
he also had to paint the tree branches
on a colour code
and add zinc tags on every side branch
so he knew what graft was what
it was a lot of work he told me
and only he knew
where and when to prune it
nobody could take over the magic tree
and keep it up like him'
and he wash';t being a show off
he was being honest
if the apple tree was not
carefully maintained,
the grafts would fail
and the advantages
would be lost in a chaotic bush
of who knows what apple type growth
so the skilled labour required
to set up & keep a multiple graft tree going
far overshadows
any advantages the tree might yield
Its a specimen kookie tree,
not a new way of having fruit
since every tree thus super grafted
would have to be meticulously worked
by a phd with a computer model
which the tree of 40 fruits required
The concept of a
multiple grafted cherry tree
was a feature in Chinese Royal gardens
to extend the cherry season a little
and have something to show off
It would have taken
a master gardener to do it
and when he died,
the magic tree sort of fell apart
its fun but far from practical
however a grated tree
of two or three would be OK
I have seen where city people
move to Niagara
buy ann old farmhouse
with a cherry tree
in the yard
' don't understand how to prune
a grafted tree
and the wilder rootstock part
overwhelms the tree and in a few years
then there are NO Cherries at all
since the grafts
can';t complete against
the stronger more robust wild cherry roots
the softer hybrid grafts,
unless the suckers are carefully cut away every year fail to produce any fruit at all
roses are the same way
One usually gets a wild rose root with a hybrid grafted atop.
since the hybrids are not winter hardy here
If the rootstock is allowed fro do its thing
it will overwhelm the graft growth
in three years
the super pretty hybrid rose
reverts to a wild hedge rose
and looks like crap
nothing like the rose bush
someone paid so much for
that started off so pretty
40 super trees is gonna take
this TED Talkerand a few people
all their lives to manage
but for a few show off specimen trees
at a botanical garden'
sure why not?
A few years ago
urban guerrillas decided
to graft food apples
into decorative crab apple treess
in parks in WaSHINGTON' state
THEY FELT PUBLIC PARKS
SHOULD BRING ON FOOD FOR ALL
NOT JUST FLOWERS FOR THE RICH
so in a few years
after their grafts took.
food apples appeared' on the
flowering crab apples
but just scrawny fruit,
that nobody wanted'
and worse,
the grafted fruit fell everywhere and rotted
rats and vermin
moved into the parks
clean up was expensive
so the parks commissioner
did the math
---no usable apples'
--- big smell
--- expensive clean up
so he ordered the trees cut down,
and new, no hassle flowering crab apples
planted in their place
with iron cages
and new legislation
warning anyone who
manipulated park trees
would get a big fine
Urban guerrillas
stopped trying s
ince they didn't think ahead
and when it turned into
a crap problem
they just disappeared
no sense of social responsibility
in that bunch of socially responsible activists
I watched that all play out
over a few years ago
on Toronto island
Urban Guerrillas there
wanted to turn island parks
into food baskets for the poor ( them )
luckily they never got around to
doing anything except talk
flowering trees are not positionmed
for fruit production
but are planted on shady borders
nor is the fruit particularly edible
nor will the hotheads who implement
the secret grafting programme
stick with it
but leave it to the Blue Meanies
to straighten out
sort of the same people
who will chain themselves
to an old city tree about to be cut down
rather than look into
why its being removed
if shade trees grow old
without spectacular drainage,
they tend to become hollow inside
and one stiff breeze'
snap and break someones house
car or pull electric wires down
Hippies are not the brightest people
no wonder they are
in constant conflict with someone els
e most of the time
Many old varieties of fruit are terrible
so are many old books
and old movies'
old fashions
and old social theories
but everybody
gets a swing at the ball
not everybody gets a hit
