MadSci Network: Botany |
It is not true that a banana tree can be combined with an apple tree by cutting the trees in half and putting the two halves together to produce a banana with a new taste. Banana and apple are too distantly related to graft together. Banana is also a monocot, and monocots generally are not graftable because they lack a vascular cambium required for grafting. Molecular biologists can transfer genes from apple to banana so they might be able to one day produce a banana that tastes like an apple but I'm not sure why they would want to do that. It would be much more useful to do something that would be more valuable, such as produce a banana that doesn't spoil so fast or that could be stored yearround as you can do for apples. You can do all sorts of novel things with grafting, such as grafting several different apple cultivars on a single tree. Reference Garner, R.J. 1988. Grafter's Handbook. London: Cassell.
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