The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Growing => Fruit => Topic started by: harrybow on June 08, 2012, 09:01:16 am
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Is it possible to grow a fruiting apple tree from an apple seed from a 'supermarket' apple. Or does a special seed need to be found?
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you can grow a tree ....
it may or may not fruit, depending on its fertility - and may take a while to get there
trees you buy are grafted - one type of "top" on a different rootstock, to get the best growing & fruiting.
best of luck :thumbsup:
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My understanding is yes you are likely to get an apple tree, but you don't know what type the pollinator was so the fruit may not be the same as the one you got the pip from. Plus, unless you graft the tree onto a rootstock, it's likely to be very vigourous and soon outgrow your ability to reach the fruit! :D
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BUT - we wouldn't have Bramleys if someone hadn't let a seedling grow. No Bramleys ? :o :o :o
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My brother grew his from seed and its now 12 years old. he gets plenty of apples now but it took a while.
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A lot of the fruiting apple trees by the sides of A roads are a result of discarded apple cores from moving cars "
I like the idea of trying to grow from seed , but only as a side line. Rebuilding the orchard I do from grafted stock for reliability and certainty of what you will get as fruit
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As above.. if it wasn't for seed grown apples there wouldn't be the varieties discovered but it is luck and statistics.
I've never bothered with apples from seed. I did once grow an orange from a seed. About 3/4 years old it fruited with a half doz really tiny very sweet oranges less than an inch diameter. I thought i'd made my fortune 'cos candied they'd be the perfect cake decorations. The next year the tree was covered in similar sized fruit - bitter as all heck (got turned to marmalade). It's never fruited since but that may all eb because it's in as a large a tub as i can manage rather than in the ground.
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As above, but I have about 100 seedlings, most are crosses out of old orchards so I have hope to get some investing new varieties.
Failing that, if the trees don't produce good fruit in 10 years or so, I'll cut off all their branches and top graft on either other seedling crosses or known varieties.
As far as I see, most will produce some sort of cooker or crab apple.
In theory even full size Apple trees could be limited by pruning or training. I have a plan for a heap of old telegraph poles we have, to create training wires at about 8 and 10 feet for my trees.
I have a new variety seedling of a delicious bright pink plum! Will be propergating up over next year.
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Well harrybow, your question has been thoroughly answered already. However, I cannot resist adding ...
I wouldn't know the odds of finding a decent new apple (eating/cooking/cider) from seedlings, but I now have over 40 hedgerow apple trees under surveillance and several are showing some promise in one way or another.
So, if you fancy playing the seedling-apple lottery, you might end up with something really useful (although the odds are against, actually). It's a bit of fun, even if it takes a while to find out what you have if you have planted the seed yourself. It's also less expensive than the other lottery.
A couple of my wild ones are proving to be really interesting and will be subject to growing under "nursery" conditions on their own roots and as grafted varieties.
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I did once plant the core of a pineapple in an attempt to get a house plant. After a few years it flowered and then produced a mini pineapple, around 2.5 to 3 inches long. It was so sweet and I looked forward to more but the plant died soon after.
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As a side, the best way to get them to grow is to put Apple pips on damp kitchen paper in sealed box or bag in fridge for few weeks, keep an eye out and watch for them sprouting the. Pot up.
Grown on a sunny warm windowsill from December or so you can get quite a sizeable whip by next autumn.
Not tried this yet but it's the sort of thing my friend and I talk about: It might be possible to get them to grow away from this years' pips, sprout and grow over winter on windowsills, till a few inches high, then induce dormancy. Then cut them to graft onto a dedicated full grown dwarfing root stock tree with the hope that the grafts take and might produce whatever fruit they potentially can in as shorter time as possible. If no good they can be cut off and new varieties put on. It's the same plan, just saves a year!
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I did once plant the core of a pineapple in an attempt to get a house plant. After a few years it flowered and then produced a mini pineapple, around 2.5 to 3 inches long. It was so sweet and I looked forward to more but the plant died soon after.
Bromeliads are like that - flower and die. You should have kept th top from the one you ate for a follow-on and if you wanted more plants in the future you could have left that second fruiting pineapply really develope to produce seedlings from all the side bits/
Pineapple really easy to grow from a top- just twist it out of the pineapple and peel away some of the lowest leaves to expose tiny rootlets - pot up and keep well watered and warm. The only problem UK is they take longer to grow and manage indoors and are a huge plant.
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I have a few growing, apples not brilliant, tend to be smallish and 'dry', ok for stewing.
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Is it possible to grow a fruiting apple tree from an apple seed from a 'supermarket' apple. Or does a special seed need to be found?
Yes I have two pi k lady pips that have germi ated and the plants are now about nine iches tall.
get your pips make sure they are nice & dark . leave thenm to dry a wek on some tissue in a fairly rdry place but not too hot . then wrap them up and put them in the fridge fore three weks at the end pop tem in the freezer for 1/2 hr only then sow this preps the seed into germinating .
Put the seeds in a reasonable seed soil that is sterile if possible about 1/2 deep with the pointy end facing down ( helps stop them getting too wet & rotting ).
I put my pots on the shaded kitchen window cill gave a light damping each day and by day 14 the first greenery started to show .
Initially I had nine seeds six came up and slugs ate four when I planted them in bigger pots in the glasshouse, Come the end of may I put them in a bigger pot out side in a partial shaded position .
As has been said, they may or may not produce fruit at around year six or later , if they do fruit there is no guarantee that they will look like Pink Lady's or even taste like them .. you'll actually have a new strain of apple .
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I just checked and pink lady is self-sterile so needs cross pollination. So no way will your new trees be anything like the original. they might be better if you're lucky.
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Thanks for that Don , I'll graft on a same week blooming different apple in that case .
At our farm I had six small stock russets on each I grafted on Bramley and Greaves sicons