Fruit Salad on a Tree

Wednesday, 03 October 2012 | by Pat's Picks

I read a tiny blurb in the New York Post this morning about something called a fruit salad tree, which grows several different kinds of fruit, all on one tree. Part of me didn’t believe it, so I went investigating. And apparently, it’s legit. An Australian company (called the Fruit Salad Tree Co.) sells four different “cocktails”—a stone fruit variety, which grows peaches, plums, nectarines, apricots and peachcots; a citrus tree, which grows winter and summer oranges, mandarins, lemons, limes, grapefruits, tangelos and pomelos; and two trees which grow either multiple kinds of apples or nashi.

According to the company, all the fruit ripens at different times and keeps its individual traits. How’s this all possible? Grafting, of course! If you’re curious, Scientific American has a good explanation of the process or you could just check out the video below for a little tutorial: