COMMUNITY SEEDBANK TREES PROJECT
The concept of community seedbank trees occurred to me in the context of breeding apples. I send out many apple seeds every year. Some seeds where both parents are known, and also open pollinated seeds, which could be fertilized by pollen from any of the many apple trees a bee might have visited on the same trip out from the hive. What if, I thought, you had an isolated tree grafted with not only just the best varieties, but varieties that were selected toward a certain goal? We might want to breed disease resistant apples, late hanging apples, apples with very generally strong interesting flavors, early apples, red fleshed apples, apples with particular flavors, savory apples, russets, etc, or a combinations of any of those and more. So the idea is to build multi-grafted frankentrees with a curated selection of varieties that will create a focused gene pool. Then let insects pollinate it randomly. This is a sort of focused chaos. It is unpredictable, yet partially controlled. This approach has some potential advantages over making intentional pollinations between just two or just a few parents.
When we are making specific cross pollinations, we are largely guessing at the results. I’m sure sophisticated apple breeding programs are guessing less and less because they have access to genetic testing and data, but for most of us, it’s more along the lines of “that might be really good with this” or “maybe I can pursue this trait by crossing these two apples.”. Apples produce extremely variable offspring. It seems almost certain that we would miss many great crosses using this very specific approach, enter the wildcards. With just a dozen varieties on one tree, each could be pollinated by any of the other 11, which means there are 11 potential crosses right there in any single variety. In reality, not all of the apples with cross pollinate, due to bloom times and who knows what else, but that is a whole lot of potential crosses from one tree. This approach creates a huge amount of diversity within a single seed lot, without any of the work of cross pollination, while making crosses we would otherwise not make.
In 2015, I crossed pollinated William’s Pride with Vixen. I remember thinking, “why and I doing this cross?” I couldn’t think of a reason, but just did it anyway to find out. When they started fruiting I was still unclear why I decided to make that cross, but they are turning out very interesting! One was worth a second look, one I already named, one more is probably a keeper at least for my home use and another is very promising, but I have only had one apple. Plus many seedlings of that cross started bearing early in life. Who really knows which crosses will yield good results.
I would love to make apple seed lots like this available, though it is complicated by the fact that it’s difficult to isolate a common fruit tree like the apple enough to prevent cross pollination from nearby trees. I have an idea on how to solve that, but it’s somewhat cumbersome and involved.
Later, I thought how cool it would be to plant community seedbank trees of different species, where people could collect both cuttings to graft, and seeds to plant. To me, an obvious species for this would be loquats. Most loquats are not very good, and most trees are planted from that not very good seed. Improved loquat varieties are quite an improvement on the average seedling, but could still use more improving. Providing a city with a few frankenquats, grafted with superior varieties only, would have the potential to greatly improve that gene pool. Essentially it would engage average people in the improvement of loquats in a very organic process. So, imagine such a tree in a community garden or public park, provided with a plaque encouraging people to plant its seeds. If that became something of a movement, it could be very effective at improving fruit. People love growing a tree from seed, but are often discouraged by “experts” and common knowledge telling them the fruit will not be any good, or that it’s too risky. But I’ve found that the exploratory, adventurous side of planting seed is actually an easy sell to most people, and is in large part their initial motive to plant seed anyway. Plant breeding is largely just about starting with good parents. These would be trees full of just good parents.
I think this is an amazing idea. The hard part it seems to me is popularizing it and getting trees into places where they will actually be discovered by people. While that may or may not work out in the long run, I feel the idea is worth pursuing and putting out into the world. It’s not just a project that might result in a lot of good new fruit varieties worth grafting, it also speaks to a fellowship of fruit growing. It is an outgrowth of the greater fruit growing community that invests new people in what is essentially a long standing group effort toward improved fruits.
Building such a tree and then moving it and planting it could be a challenge, especially if it housed a lot of varieties. Most species would have to be grown pretty large to be finished before moving. More ideally, they would be built on site as they grow up. An alternative would be to have populations of trees immediately adjacent to each other, as I would like to do with Trichocereus cacti. Frankentrees are much more appealing though, and they would also educate people to the idea that a single fruit tree can easily carry many varieties. Of course, such a tree can also provide grafting stock for those wanting to take that adventure.
For me to pull off good sized, finished seedbank trees, I’d need a stable, well organized nursery environment. Automated watering would be very preferable for consistent, reliable growth and labor savings. Also management/labor to keep nursery operations running and tasks executed in a timely manner, all of which I typically suck at. Once the project is a go, I’m sure I can find and acquire the superior varieties required. Ideally they would be planted and fruited ahead of time. v.s. grafted on reputation only. I’m already collecting loquats and have seedlings planted for stock. As new varieties arise from the project itself, the most promising could be looped back in.
The social aspect of this project would involve first and foremost getting the idea out there into the world. A consistent name would be essential for that. I could also see a virtual hub as well, where people could find the trees on a map and seed planters could post pictures and results in a forum or database of some kind. This project could possibly find a home under the umbrella of my concept of an online community and database for small scale plant breeders. I think having a plaque for these trees or populations, that contains a web address would be almost essential. Such a website could house basic germination and growing information. Trees would also need to be sited where many people go and would discover them. I think this could be a popular idea, but it would require time to gain momentum. Baby steps.