Osage Orange is a very hardy tree with large and abundant fruit. The only problem is that those fruit are filled with bitter latex.
It’s close relative Che doesn’t have that problem.
They have been hybridized successfully to create Macludrania hybrida and the fruit characteristics are intermediate between the two parents but no one seems to have been interested enough to grow out the F2 and see if they could get large fruits without the latex.
It seems like it would be easy enough to cross a female che and a thornless male Osage Orange like “white shield” and then cross the children together and see if any of the grandchildren are latex free when ripe
Maclura tricuspidata (Che–it’s been moved into the same genus as Osage Orange) is the fist tree that comes to mind for hybridization, but it may not be the best choice. The hybridization of it and M. pomifera (Osage Orange) is apparently quite difficult, and I don’t know if the progeny is fertile–though it wouldn’t hurt for people to try this route some more, seems under-researched.
Randyks mentioned M. Cochinchinensis, which is probably worth trying as well–though my assumption is it would still be a difficult hybridization. The problem is that neither M. Cochinchiensis not M. tricuspida are especially close to M. pomifera within the genus.
M. pomifera’s closest relative appears to be M. brasiliensis. I have no idea if brasiliensis has edible fruit though. M. tinctoria, a big timber tree from Central and South America that was used for a yellow dye until recently (US khaki uniforms were dyed with this) does have edible fruit which appear to be sweet when fully ripe, though filled with a yellow latex until very close to ripening. So M. tinctoria might be worth a try, though it might be difficult to manage in a greenhouse given how big it gets, and I doubt it will survive much frost given its distribution.
Hi,
I was just trying to figure out how to get breadfruit to be more hardy when i stumbled upon how closely related osage orange is. Then, i wondered if it could be hybridized, which brought me here.
What is your source that Che and Osage Orange have successfully been hybridized? I’ve only read about it on Eat The Weeds (Che - Eat The Weeds and other things, too), but when I tried to research it more I couldn’t find any other sources except an image showing a small plant at the Morton Arboretum, which might as well be a small Che (Osage Silk Thorn - Macludrania hybrida - North American Insects & Spiders). Is there any actual confirmation/proof (genetic test, pictures of hybrid fruits, scientific paper, etc) on this purported hybrid? Has anyone visited the plant at Morton Arboretum?
The original french hybrid is botanically described in Bailey’s Cyclopedia of Horticulture in my 1916 edition. There was an article on the web by a Swiss,German, Austrian? horticulturist nicknamed Wolf who was involved with the remake of this hybrid in early 70’s. Professor Kipplinger? did it at university in Columbus Ohio. Personal communication (2005?) with one of the researchers there at that time, he still had several of the offspring growing at his ex-wife’s property. He said they were somewhat differing habits, thorny, male’s and female’s, and bulletproof with absolutely no care whatsoever over decades.
Looks like the classification of che as belonging to a separate genus from osage orange is not currently recognized as valid. At this point, they are both considered to be members of the genus Maclura. That would make the hybrid designation of ×Macludrania invalid since it is no longer considered to be an intergeneric hybrid, but rather an interspecific hybrid.
Unfortunately, while related those two are far enough apart that hybrids are extraordinarily unlikely. It would be like hybridizing apples and strawberries.
Breadfruit is extremely tropical, I’m not sure any kind of cold tolerance is realistic. Your best bet would be to try to hybridize it with the somewhat subtropical members of the genus like Artocarpus styracifolius (somewhat, this is still pretty much a tropical plant, just less unforgivingly so than breadfruit).
