Re: Is it possible to make

Holly,

You certainly have an interesting idea but, getting two
plants in one is a little more complex.  You would have to
get the nuclei of the two cells to fuse, first, to get
characters from two plants in one.  This  might be possible 
using plant tissue culture which takes many months.  Every-
thing must be done under aseptic (sterile) conditions.  This
probably would not be suitable for a high school Science
Fair project.  A projectt of this complexity needed to be
started in September.  You could try a cloning experiment
by trying to root cuttings from several plants.  A cutting
is a clone of the parent.

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Admin note:

David Hershey adds the following:


Is it possible to make


What you are describing sounds like grafting in which a bud or small shoot
of one plant is attached to the root system of another to make one plant
(Hartmann and Kester, 1983). Grafting is very widely used in horticulture.
Most of our tree fruits are grown on grafted trees and most roses and many
landscape trees and shrubs are grafted. The cacti with a colorful top on a
green bottom are grafted.

Grafting could possibly be used for a school science project. Grafting has
been used a lot in photoperiodism research on flowering (Salisbury and
Ross, 1985)

Reference

Hartmann, H.T. and Kester, D.E. 1983. Plant Propagation: Principles and
Practices. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.

Salisbury, F.B. and Ross, C.W. 1985. Plant Physiology. Belmont, CA:
Wadsworth.