They are occasionally used as rootstock on citrus trees so anything that grows below the graft will produce the rootstock fruit or if the tree died back below the graft at some point the entire tree can just be the rootstock species.
Look up the difference between broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower, brussel sprouts, kale, kohlarabi and collards. All of em are more or less the same plant bred for different genetic characteristics. The history of how the orange was created, how a lot of citrus fruits were made by hybridization, is pretty cool. Strawberries are one such fruit too. Selective crossbreeding and horticulture is pretty neat.
The cool bit is more why they graft. If the rootstoxk is from a dwarf tree it will dwarf whats on top, if its more cold hardy it will make the top more so, but the most common reason is usually disease resistance. Unfortunately grafted trees often have a shorter lifespan due to the graft failing or getting infected with age. Peaches and plums will usually last about 15 years depending on climate
Yeah trifolate and swingle are pretty common rootstocks and both can be super thorny. They will eventually produce fruit, not good fruit.... but fruit like things.... regrafting is pretty easy luckily. Flying dragon rootstock does look really cool though
Yes you can, they are often called "fruit salad" trees. Similarly you can have pears, apples, and quince on one tree, and peaches, plums, apricots and cherries on another. As long as the grafts are the same family it generally works, there are some odd non compatability issues with certain varieties. Theres an guy who makes trees with 40 different varieties per tree. Upkeep takes some work since you have to be more careful about branch pruning.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tree_of_40_Fruit
Yep. Wife had a grafted rosebush at our old house and it died one winter from the frost and when it came back the next year we didn't get any blooms, and the year after that instead of the dark red blooms, they were a sickly yellow, lol.
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u/Versipilies 1d ago
They are occasionally used as rootstock on citrus trees so anything that grows below the graft will produce the rootstock fruit or if the tree died back below the graft at some point the entire tree can just be the rootstock species.