NEW FRUIT scientific discovery or not

Last year around winter time the same tree was full of these rotten-half dissolved shribbled up "crab apples" that explode when you touch them. Go under that tree and its a mine field, be carefull where you step or you would be covered in stinky rotten "crab apples." Its been over a year now and all of it has gone except for the splatter on my window where the "crab apple" flew up and smashed into it when I was curious and pulled down the branch to see what happens. I can still take a picture of it maybe. But that kind of effect during the winter leads me to thinking its a chapple tree because I never heard of any apples that half-dissolve inside and shribble up.

Originally posted by wildcat
I am being a little cautious about eating it regardless of my thought of it may be containing a curing substance.

Even if this 'super mutation' or what we would call it had happened, you could be sure you wouldnt get ill by eating it. At most a stomach ache.

I doubt it's a mutation. In fact - I know it's not a mutation. Plants don't spontaneously turn into other plants. What is far more likely is that the tree has sprouted from beneath a graft and the stronger new srpout has outcompeted the old tree. Fruit trees are routinely grafted onto the rootstock of a different related tree to control such things as root disease-resistance and the size of the above-ground part (eg. to dwarf an otherwise large tree). It is fairly normal for the graft rootstock to sprout from beneath the joint perdiodically. If these sprouts are not pruned off they can grow very fast and get bigger and stronger than the main tree above the graft, which can then get outcompeted for light and nutrients from the rootstock and can die off in just a few seasons, leaving a new tree of the rootstock variety alone.

This sounds the most plausible explanation.

Originally posted by wildcat
Last year around winter time the same tree was full of these rotten-half dissolved shribbled up "crab apples" that explode when you touch them.

Ok, now I am even more confused. You said you had a normal cherry tree and a normal apple tree in the front and back yards. Which one is now making the 'weird' fruit?

As far as hybridizing apples and cherries, I couldn't find anything on it after a quick search. BUT I did see that some fruits can hybridize easily.

Do you know what kind of apple and cherry trees they are/were, before the weird event?

Definitly take some digital photos and upload them when you can, u2u me if there is a problem uploading.
A camera-phone would work nicely for this, maybe a friend of yours can snap a shot?

Fruit trees must be pollinated to bear fruit. Otherwise, you'll have blossoms aplenty but no fruit. Some are "self fruitful" meaning pollination can occur within the flowers on the same tree. Some require a "female" and a "male" tree to bear fruit, like a Bradford pear.

I don't believe it's possible to pollinate an apple tree with cherry pollen to create a new species of fruit. You can, however, get some hybridization with grafting a limb of one type of fruit on a tree of another type. Google up Luther Burbank for some historical background on that process.

Originally posted by Nygdan

Originally posted by wildcat
Last year around winter time the same tree was full of these rotten-half dissolved shribbled up "crab apples" that explode when you touch them.

Ok, now I am even more confused. You said you had a normal cherry tree and a normal apple tree in the front and back yards. Which one is now making the 'weird' fruit?

As far as hybridizing apples and cherries, I couldn't find anything on it after a quick search. BUT I did see that some fruits can hybridize easily.

Do you know what kind of apple and cherry trees they are/were, before the weird event?

Definitly take some digital photos and upload them when you can, u2u me if there is a problem uploading.
A camera-phone would work nicely for this, maybe a friend of yours can snap a shot?

Its the "chapple tree" that last winter it half dissolved its insides and shribbled up hanging to the tree so loosely, that you tap a branch then other "chapples" would fall down that are not on the brach you tapped but near it.

I'm not sure what kind of apple tree it is but it looks like this -

www.bbc.co.uk...

I am very busy during the week days but on Friday, I will be free and also on the weekend. And then I can take a picture.

[edit on 23-10-2006 by wildcat]

[edit on 23-10-2006 by wildcat]

Just verifying one thing first there OP.......your Yard isn't in Chernobyl is it?

No.

Got something to say, you know that picture I gave you all? Well I just now turned this candle toward me for I can see the sticker on it and it had the same exact picture. Funny isnt it?

Have you ever directly witnessed seeing the cherries and eating them? Same applies for the apples.
How long have you had these trees? Did you plant them or did the previous owners plant them?
If you've been around them for more than one season did you eat last season's pickings or did yout neglect them?

At my last house we had a very similar occurence.
We had an apple tree, and what looked like a cherry tree. It produced fruit that looked EXACTLY like a cherry but when we cut it open it was like an apple inside. We decided to taste it and it was kinda gross.
We found out it was a variant of crab apple.

I will only believe when I see....

Originally posted by d60944
I doubt it's a mutation. In fact - I know it's not a mutation. Plants don't spontaneously turn into other plants.

That is not true. A mutation where a plants entire genome is doubled, turns it into a new plant. It cant breed with the former species, and therefore it is a new plant.

And genome doublings has been quite commen in plants. Many of our major crops are octo-ploids. (Ie. has 8 copies of each chromosome)

That is not true. A mutation where a plants entire genome is doubled, turns it into a new plant. It cant breed with the former species, and therefore it is a new plant.

Production of tetraploidy (and others gene-multiplication) does not make a "new" plant as such in the sense of a new species. It is the same plant, just larger usually. And they can be breed with the old species in most cases. (eg. the various cultivars of orchid hybrids involving 4N plants in their background - you might want to use Phragmipedium besseae as an example to look at).

In addition, this kind of mutation does not happen with an established plant to my knowledge - it takes place at the reproductive stage (it can be provoked in a meristematic culture by the addition of colchine as well though). I'd be interested if this is not correct.

Ployploidy is very different from the creation of a different species (or even a different genus in the case of apples and cherries [Malus and Prunus respectively], in that the plants "look" the same. You don't get a rose bush turning spontanesouly into an quince tree due to polyploidy, despite them looking vaguely like scaled-up/down versions of each other in some ways).

Cheers.

[edit on 24-10-2006 by d60944]

Originally posted by Tsiv
Have you ever directly witnessed seeing the cherries and eating them? Same applies for the apples.
How long have you had these trees? Did you plant them or did the previous owners plant them?
If you've been around them for more than one season did you eat last season's pickings or did yout neglect them?

At my last house we had a very similar occurence.
We had an apple tree, and what looked like a cherry tree. It produced fruit that looked EXACTLY like a cherry but when we cut it open it was like an apple inside. We decided to taste it and it was kinda gross.
We found out it was a variant of crab apple.

I have noticed that they are not cherries like I remember last year (season) and just got around to spreading my "discovery." And its been this very week that I have gotten around to examining it. Yeah your story fits my story pretty well.