Is it possible to hybridize fruits and nuts?

Question

Well, this may seem likr a pointless endeavor, b ut me and a couple of friends decided to try exprimentation with Hybrids, this is of course for science class. I'm looking for yes or no answeres with logical explinations attached to them.

Please answer soon.

Answer 1

For this project would it be enough to design the crosses and the reasoning behind the specific species chosen or do you really have to attempt the crosses? You will need to know the chromosome count of the species you choose and select the egg and pollen parent species.

Rosaceae might offer a chance to research hybridization. This is the family that includes roses & apples. There are 4 subfamilies. If you look at a single subfamily you will see hybrid crosses that are already familiar.
Subfamily Rosoideae: Rose, blackberry, raspberry, strawberry, Potentilla, Geum. The berries readily hybridize.
Tayberries, marionberries & loganberries are all hybrids.

Subfamily Maloideae: apple, cotoneaster, hawthorn, pear, quince, rowan, whitebeam.
Subfamily Amygdaloideae: plum, peach, almond, cherry, apricot. This has the plumcot hybrid.

I would look to quince as a starting plant since it is a shrub rather than a tree so will grow faster. Use it as the egg parent and try pear or apple as the pollen parent. You would have to acquire a species Chaenomeles. Chaenomeles speciosa is the flowering quince.
Pyrus communis is the European pear.
http://jhered.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/citation/7/9/416
http://waynesword.palomar.edu/ecoph17.htm


Another family to look in is the Rutaceae including all citrus.
Kumquats hybridize well & are known as Citrofortunella; the limequat, orangequat, and calamondin.

If you must actually buy the plants and do the crosses you should consider annuals so you can actually grow the seed you get from a fertile cross.

Answer 2

Almonds and fruits like peaches aren't too, too distantly related. I'll see what I can find.

That didn't take long--the answer is yes--it's already been done:

http://www.raintreenursery.com/catalog/producttype.cfm?producttype=ALMO

"Halls Hardy Almond/Lovell

A beautiful ornamental that is also edible. This hardy tree produces a profusion of delicate, fragrant early spring pink blossoms. This is followed by attractive, disease resistant, peach like foliage. Halls is thought to be a peach-almond cross. The tree grows rapidly to 20 feet and is self-fertile. The thick shelled, strong flavored almonds are good for cooking and eating. It blooms comparatively late for an almond and does very well in the maritime Northwest."

The simple reason is that they are more similar then they might appear at first glance. We normally think of the fruit as being incredibly different--one is essentially "fruit' with a relatively small seed, the other one is mostly seed. That is not necessarily a huge difference. Just as certain dogs may have different characteristics, like much shorter legs, longer ears, etc., these differences are really superficial and they're actually the same species. These particular fruits/nuts are different species, however again what appear to be huge superficial differences do not likely appear to be huge on the DNA level. Thus the species may produce viable and healthy hybrids.

Edit: just found a plum x almond-peach hybrid as well. Again, these are all closely related:

http://www.bioinfo.wsu.edu/cgi-bin/gdr/cmap/map_set_info?map_set_aid=123

All of these plants are in fact in the same genus: Prunus. Also in the genus are cherries and apricots. By the way...technically almonds are seeds, not nuts. But then so are cashews, peanuts, pistchios, etc. so I wouldn't worry about that.

Answer 3

Whether or not different species of plants can be hybridised with one another is down to how related they are.
As plants evolve they change, in their flowers, in their pollen and egg cells, which makes them unable to breed with unrelated plants.
Look at the classification of the plants you are interested in.
If you are interested in crossing a nut tree with a fruit tree then I think you aren't going to succeed. Although the previous answerer had a really good idea with almonds. They are closely related to several types of fruit; peaches, nectarines, apricots, plums, cherries.
The next thing is do you realise how long it takes to breed trees? It's going to take your hybrid at least 5 years to produce it's first fruit lol.

Answer 4

Yup. See above!