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Any of you people ever grow apple trees?


Parr8hed

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Like trees from seeds? 

Doing some online research and it would appear that it's a fairly complex procedure.  You cannot just throw some seeds in a pot and expect the trees to make you little apple fruits.  Just curious what you people know about this.

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Sorry, can't help with your question.  I had a great uncle that was an avid gardner and grew his apple trees along waist high cables in anticipation of his senior years when ladders would be iffy.  I always thought it was cool and a great example of forward planning.

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Holy cow. From seeds?? That will take forever to get apples. We do peaches here (apple trees grow wild all over the place, and my husband is all about peaches..), but he has been trying to grow apple trees at camp. I don't know how old those trees are (he got them as very young trees), but he's having a fit not seeing any apples yet. And that's been a few years. May just be in a bad spot? 

A person at work has about 10 trees she's working on. She says whenever she walks past the trees, she gives the base of the tree a hearty bump with the side of her boot. I guess if the tree senses stress, it will bump up it's growth effort. ?? She also said she heard it takes about 10 years or so before you get apples. ?? 

No help on the seed question. But if getting apples from a tree that has already been started is this much of a pain, I don't envy your process/attempt at apple trees from seed.

But the tree has to start somewhere, eh? Good luck!

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I can go buy some apple trees and plant them but this is more or less about teaching the kids.  I know it will prob take about 10 years to see apples?  Maybe slightly less?  But the article I read talked about grafting.  Not sure I want to get into all of that.

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Apples are members of the Rosaceae, and as such, will not come true from seed.  All commercial varieties (and most of the non-commercial "heritage" varieties) are grafted.

 

You can grow root stock from seed, but again, it will often be inferior to the commercial rootstocks available for use.  The only possible reason you might want to grow apples from seed would be some sort of cider orchard on a budget, or if you were hybridizing to create new varieties.  In the hybridizing business, very few of the apples produced actually go on to be grown as desirable apples for eating.

 

I've been planting and growing them in the various places I've lived since the early 80's.

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Bought and sold them, both from bareroot stock and from container grown stock;  As mentioned, apples, and most fruit trees you buy in nursery's are grafted onto hardy root stock, in order to combine the hardiness of the root with the desirable qualities of the grafted variety.  Also you need to know if your trees are self fertile, semi fertile, or sterile and you need to know what varieties can cross pollinate each other.  Finally, you need to know the climate zone you live in and the chilling requirements of the varieties you choose.  Apples have to received a certain amount of cold weather in order for the buds to open. And the trees all bloom at different seasons, so if you plan carefully, you can have a longer fruiting season.

You should also learn to prune, as this will greatly affect your yield and fruit quality.  When I was in the business, we used an open Y or bowl shaped pruning method to open up the center of the tree.

Texas is not great apple land due to our chilling, or lack of, but if you live in West Texas or at elevation and you can get them to bloom, you can get some really nice apples due to the amount of sunlight they receive.

 

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You will probably not get a hardy tree that way and it will take forever.  Too many potential tree and root diseases.  Most apple saplings are grafted onto some sturdy tree.  You need "winter" the seeds before you plant them.  Maybe this takes 12 weeks?  Need to be damp and sprout. You also need two different types of seeds because apple trees are not self-pollinating. They grow slowly.  

If this is to teach the kids that food doesn't come from Wegmans you may want to have them sprout the seeds and then fast forward to a small tree from the nurseyr.

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Like trees from seeds? 

Doing some online research and it would appear that it's a fairly complex procedure.  You cannot just throw some seeds in a pot and expect the trees to make you little apple fruits.  Just curious what you people know about this.

Uh, no. You can't do it from seed. Apple trees are genetic freaks and must be cloned. Seeds from a given tree will turn out to be something entirely different from the parent.

Buy a tree, grafted onto the correct rootstock.

Here's the relevant info.: 

"In the wild, apples grow readily from seeds. However, like most perennial fruits, apples are ordinarily propagated asexually by grafting. This is because seedling apples are an example of "extreme heterozygotes", in that rather than inheriting DNA from their parents to create a new apple with those characteristics, they are instead significantly different from their parents

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So you guys are all saying that Johnny Appleseed was basically full of shit? :scratch head::dontknow:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johnny_Appleseed

...he was pretty nuts, and a Swedenborgian to boot, but what he was doing was establishing trees that would be used for cidering and as established rootstocks for grafting. Top working an established, standard sized apple tree was commonly done as a quick way to get a crop of apples.  He was noted as a famous early nurseryman, so doubtless knew what he was doing.

 

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No one else has mentioned this, but you never do things the easy way do you?

​LOL, this one, I can assure you, will be done the easy way. 

We just planted a little garden on the kitchen table in some starters.  Some tomater seeds, cukes, etc.  Easy stuff.  A few herbs as well like cilantro, parsley and basil.  Like I said, easy stuff.  Griffin was eating an apple and spit out a seed and I just got an idea.  I ain't down for all of this grafting crap though.  I'll just buy a damn tree.

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​LOL, this one, I can assure you, will be done the easy way. 

We just planted a little garden on the kitchen table in some starters.  Some tomater seeds, cukes, etc.  Easy stuff.  A few herbs as well like cilantro, parsley and basil.  Like I said, easy stuff.  Griffin was eating an apple and spit out a seed and I just got an idea.  I ain't down for all of this grafting crap though.  I'll just buy a damn tree.

Nope, after they are producing you have to graft different varieties to one tree. Because it is cool having green and red apples on one tree.  

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Apples sound like a real pain in the ass, but I like the idea of teaching kids to raise and kill their own fruits.  Maybe grow some blueberries or raspberries instead?

 

Btw, a lot of you sound like tools of the apple cartels.  Wtf can't you just drop a couple of seeds and wait it out until apples fall out of the trees ass?  It happens in the wild, isn't your backyard wild enough?

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Apples sound like a real pain in the ass, but I like the idea of teaching kids to raise and kill their own fruits.  Maybe grow some blueberries or raspberries instead?

 

Btw, a lot of you sound like tools of the apple cartels.  Wtf can't you just drop a couple of seeds and wait it out until apples fall out of the trees ass?  It happens in the wild, isn't your backyard wild enough?

​Most people put them into their bodies at the other end.  Just saying.

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