To plant a fruit tree that grows 4 different kinds of fruit at a time

Plant Grafting

You’ve chosen to imagine one tree growing four different kinds of fruit. You might want to learn more about plant grafting, which joins plants together. Now you can make a fruit salad from one tree alone!

Fun Facts:

Artist Sam Van Aken makes Trees of 40 Fruit using grafting.
People in ancient China practiced plant grafting more than 2,000 years ago.
Apple growers graft favorite apple varieties because their seeds grow into different trees.

Plant Grafting

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We’re exploring plant grafting, which joins parts of different plants together. If the plants are compatible, their tissues heal together and continue growing as one plant. Growers use grafting to reproduce favorite fruit varieties and combine varieties on one tree. Grafting usually works only between plants that are closely related, so a single tree cannot grow every imaginable fruit. With the right combination, though, you might make a fruit salad from one tree alone!

Fun Facts:

Sam Van Aken’s Tree of 40 Fruit can grow peaches, plums, cherries, apricots, nectarines, and almonds on one tree.
Grafting was described in ancient Greek and Chinese writings by at least the fifth century BCE.
A seed from a Granny Smith apple might grow a tree with very different apples. Growers graft branches to keep favorite apple varieties the same.
A very strange citrus tree appeared in Florence, Italy, in the 1600s. Called the Bizzarria, it can grow citrons, sour oranges, and fruits that look like mixtures of both.
The Laburnocytisus ‘Adamii’ tree can grow yellow flowers, purple flowers, and even unusual flowers that mix traits from both plants.

Discussion Question:

Which four fruits would you graft onto your tree, and why?

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Physical Build:

Build your own four-fruit tree with a cardboard tube, paper, tape, and craft materials. Make four different branches and invent a fruit for each one. Think about where each branch needs sunlight, space, and support as your tree grows.

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Digital Build:

With an adult, ask ChatGPT:

“Design a tree that grows four surprising kinds of fruit.”

Choose your favorite ideas, then draw the tree or build a model. You can change any fruit or add features that help your tree grow.

or a rainbow strawberry bush that grows strawberries in different colors, like red, yellow and purple?

Rainbow Strawberries

Plant Gene Expression

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You’ve chosen to imagine a strawberry plant growing red, yellow, purple, and other colorful strawberries. You might want to learn more about plant gene expression, which helps control traits like fruit color. Just don’t forget about the trusty old red strawberries when you have purple, blue, and yellow ones, too!

Fun Facts:

Strawberry researchers found that a gene called MYB10 helps control whether strawberries develop red color.
White strawberries already exist, and some are grown for special occasions in Japan.
More than 1,000 years ago, people grew purple and yellow carrots before orange became the most common color.

Plant Gene Expression

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We’re exploring plant gene expression, or how plants use instructions in their cells to produce traits such as color. Strawberry researchers study genes that regulate anthocyanins, the pigments responsible for much of a ripe strawberry’s red color. Changes in these genes can help produce white or pale fruit. Breeding and biotechnology have created unusual colors in other crops, including purple tomatoes and pink pineapples. One strawberry plant producing an entire rainbow of fruit doesn’t exist yet, but learning these rules could help us imagine strawberries with new colors. Just don’t forget about the trusty old red strawberries when you have purple, blue, and yellow ones, too!

Fun Facts:

Scientists found that changes in a strawberry gene called MYB10 can help produce white fruit instead of red fruit.
Scientists have created a real purple tomato. They changed the tomato so it makes lots of anthocyanins—the same family of pigments that colors foods such as blueberries.
Colorful vegetables are much older than modern genetics. Purple and yellow carrots were grown in Central Asia more than 1,000 years ago.
Humans were changing plant colors long before anyone knew about genes. Farmers saved seeds from plants with colors they liked, slowly creating new varieties over many generations.
Pinkglow pineapple is a real genetically modified fruit. Scientists changed how the plant handles pigments so pink lycopene builds up inside it.

Discussion Question:

Do you think it would be worth it to grow different-colored fruit? Why or why not?

LISTEN

Physical Build:

Create a rainbow strawberry bush with paper, cardboard, tape, and anything colorful you can find. Make strawberries in several colors, then invent a simple “plant instruction” card for each color. Decide which colors appear on which branches and whether your bush changes as it grows.

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Digital Build:

With an adult, ask ChatGPT:

“Imagine a strawberry bush that can grow strawberries in four different colors.”

Use the answer as a starting point, then change the colors, shapes, or growing patterns yourself. Draw your final bush and show how its different fruits grow.