[sbierwagen]

How many apple trees are visible in this photo of an Idaho forest? https://www.planetware.com/wpimages/2020/08/idaho-best-natio...

Ceteris paribus, normal trees will always outcompete fruit trees because they don't have to waste any energy on fruit, and use that instead on trunk height, putting fruit trees in their shade and, eventually, starving them to death.

You can, of course, maintain an orchard of fruit trees, manually removing competitor species, but then we're talking about stationary farming, a technology that Plains Indians did not have ten thousand years ago.

[pvaldes]

> normal trees will always outcompete fruit trees

Not. Not always. This is a too simplistic point of view.

Is like asking "how many penguins can be seen in this photo of the sahara?" If the conclusion is that penguins can't compete with camels, is a deceptive one.

This forest is a conifer forest. Put the same conifer in a place suitable for growing walnuts, figs, or hazelnuts and we will see who kills who.