Ever heard  of fruit salad trees?  They are for real!  

When you grow a lemon tree in your backyard, it will give you lemons. If you grow an orange tree, it will give you oranges. What if we say that you can get both from the same tree? Wait, how’s that even possible? Yes it is. You can get different fruits from the same tree. This tree which gives you different kinds of fruits is called a fruit salad tree. The technique which allows it to do so is known as ‘grafting’.   

Fruit salad trees at a glance 
So, what exactly is a fruit salad tree? It is a tree that gives you six to eight different varieties of ‘related’ fruits. So when we say ‘related’ fruits, it means they should come from the same family. Imagine fruits such as lemons, oranges and limes all hanging on the same tree. Wow! 

You can have four main types of these fruit trees - the stone fruit, citrus, multi apple, and multi nashi.  

So what does a stone fruit tree give you? Not stones of course! It offers you fruits with stone-like seeds inside. This tree gives you a combination of plums, apricots, peaches, and nectarines and does well in warm climates. Accordingly, the citrus fruit salad tree produces citrus fruits such as lemons, grapefruit, oranges, mandarins, limes, etc. And as the name suggests, the multi-apple tree produces a variety of apples such as green, yellow, and red apples while the multi-nashi tree would give you various kinds of Asian pears. 

The birth of fruit salad tree 
Well, the idea was first conceived by an Australian couple, James and Kerry West in the early 1990s when they grew their first fruit salad tree successfully in Australia. Over time, however, people have shipped the trees to other parts of the world.  

What’s so great about these trees? 
The best thing about fruit salad trees is that, instead of using different resources for growing different kinds of seeds, you can just put all of them in one pot or area and voila, you are done! Moreover, with this technique you will need less space to grow your fruits and therefore, even a small garden space in your backyard is good enough. Since the fruits ripen at different periods, they are ready for consumption at different times. Hence, there is a constant production of fruits from the same tree. However, there’s a disadvantage too. You just put different related fruit seeds in your garden but they won’t grow successfully. You first need to learn and gain competence in the technique by which these fruit trees are grown. 

The science of grafting 
So what is grafting? It is the technique of uniting the tissues of two or more plants so that they grow and function as a single plant. Most grafts involve only two plants but multi-graft techniques are also being used widely. The way to do it is to attach whatever kind of plant you want to grow onto a root system that is well-adapted to the local soil. You just need to remember one thing - the more closely related the plants, the more successful the graft. You may have noticed at your local nursery different types of cacti grafted in the same pot. Some gardeners have even created pomato plants which grow potatoes underground and tomatoes above the ground. Yes, they both belong to the same family if you were confused by their appearances.  

You would be surprised to know that this technique is being used by farmers for crops for thousands of years. There are references to grafting in the Bible as well as ancient Greek and ancient Chinese texts, indicating that grafting was practised in Europe, the Middle East and Asia by at least the 5th century BC.