Grafting Trees

I wish I could wax poetic about this picture. This is near Manteca, CA, where you will find miles and miles of nut and fruit trees (I'm assuming based on the very organized planting, but it is "winter" here too, so no leaves). A few years ago I read "The Botany of Desire," another one by Michael Pollan, and he writes a lot about apples. I have no idea where my copy of the book is, so I can't remember exactly what he wrote, but it was the first time I heard about grafting trees. Apples are heterozygous (do I have that right). That is, that if you plant a few apple seeds from the same Granny Smith apple, you will not get a Granny Smith apple tree from any of them, and each will produce a tree with different tasting apples. I found this simplified explanation of grafting on a website: Insert a small twig cut from one fruit tree into a cut in another, compatible fruit tree. If you've placed the grafts correctly, the twig will soon start to grow on the host tree and eventually produce fruit. Easy, right?

Anyway, when reading about grafting, I had no concept of what this could be. It just didn't make sense to me. So, imagine my excitement on Sunday, when I was driving on Rte. 120 and saw grafted trees like I've never seen before. Not that I understand it now, but at least I have a picture in my head. I also think this is nature being really cute...two trees working together to make edible fruit for us. Thanks trees!

Editor's Note: I've decided to spell grafting like it should be spelled and not like a math concept.