Guerilla Grafters strike in SF - grafting fruit producing branches on to trees. City don't like it.

[Liberal_in_LA]

28. More: Renegade arborists creating forbidden fruit in San Francisco

Renegade arborists creating forbidden fruit in San Francisco

Guerrilla Grafters, which formed last year, is grafting fruit-producing branches to ornamental pear and plum trees around The City.

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“When you take a stroll down the street and there’s all this free fruit, it changes your attitude,” said Tara Hui, one of the founders of Guerilla Grafters.

Guerrilla Grafters began early last year when a few dozen members fanned out across The City grafting fruit-producing branches onto ornamental pear and plum trees in four San Francisco neighborhoods. The experiment is still in its early stages, but Hui said at least one Asian pear in Hayes Valley had flowered.

“We were so fortunate,” she said. “It formed two little pears!”

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Hui said such grafting won’t harm trees. Guerrilla Grafters, which is working on an urban orchard database, assigns a steward to oversee each tree, collecting fruit, pruning it and looking for disease.

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Hui acknowledged that fruit trees are messy when their fruit goes uncollected, but she felt sure that San Franciscans will pick whatever fruit they came across.


Read more at the San Francisco Examiner: http://www.sfexaminer.com/local/2012/01/renegade-arborists-hope-sow-fruit-trees-san-francisco#ixzz1iWjzdGqM