Propagating Quality Fruit Trees From Seed.

I want to grow tree's from seed and do the no prune method. Just keep it very simple. I am aware that a seed from a fruit will not make the same tasting fruit. This deters some people, but i actually want to make my own types of fruit trees. I Think it would be really cool. Does anyone have experience with something like this? How do i get started? Should i just go around and collect a shit ton of seeds?

Pros:

Free trees, as many as you want or can handle.
Chance of obtaining a new variety that is desirable.
Some trees in some situations are better grown from seed.
Ability to grow trees that might otherwise be unobtainable.


Cons:

much longer to get to fruiting age.
Chance of obtaining a more or less useless variety or worse than parent plant.
Some trees do better if grafted


Thats some pros/cons I thought of, having said that, I've grown 50-60 trees from seed- citrus varieties, American persimmon, cypress,etc.

I grow Cherokee peach (or Blood peach) from seed. My two oldest trees had a wonderful crop this year. They are true to type and I have heard that most peaches are. I have several of those at different ages and two other kinds...a yellow and a white peach that grow here locally that should fruit this year also grown from pits that I planted. I plant the fresh pit in a pot and leave it outdoors over the winter...usually they will sprout early spring. I transplant to a bigger pot and plant out the next winter or sometimes later. I sometimes plant the pit where I want the tree but then the deer here eat it or I forget where I planted it.

From my experience

Peach from seed is good, all of the ones I've grown and seedlings I've found in the wild.

Pears are iffy, seems to me you get a real good one or a crappy one no middle

Almond from seed is good

Apple is ok, Lots of variation but not as much as people say

Nuts grow well from seed but take a while to produce

Cherry grow good from seed

Berries do well

Really I find a lot of the talk is regurgitation of what other people say. It's like sepp holzer says you never know until you try it.

Thanks for for the reply's. This is the sort of information i am seeking. Much appreciated!

The cool thing is I'm 20 years old, so i have a while to mess around with stuff like this.

Instead of waiting 10 years to have enough money to buy live trees it makes more sense to grow from seed and in 5-10 yrs cut down the ones that are not good enough.
You could also plant 1/2 seed and 1/2 live trees that way you would be guaranteed at least 50% good harvest and instead of waiting te years you would only have to wait 3 years to harvest.
Plus alot of named cultivar is only good for 13yrs.
Alot of names cultivars are not even bred for sweetness or nutrition but instead for color(red) and for toughness (handling and shipping)

Brandon Karhu wrote:The cool thing is I'm 20 years old, so i have a while to mess around with stuff like this.

Plant 100 seeds a year all your life! Wow.

yeah totally, just go for it !

i'm into this idea too, though i am just getting started with it, so my experience is limited as far as results.
but i have been reading about this and starting a bunch of different trees from seed, or at least trying =)

i really believe that it is incorrect to say you arent likely to get good seed from fruit and that you have to buy named cultivars and nursery stock.
commercial fruit production uses all sorts of odd ways, and hybrids, grafting....so its like thats the issue- these methods -not that you cant get good fruit from seeds. maybe i am wrong, but i am sticking with this idea for now until it proves itself right or wrong, cause it seems right to me.

if you know something is an "heirloom" or closer to the wild original type, it will likely make good fruit (imo).

its only certain varieties- cherry and apple are two that they say you wont get very good fruit from random seeds. apples mostly because they use crabapple in commercial growing as a pollinator.
supposedly red delicious, and golden delicious are old school heirloom types, or ones that might be better for starting, but unfortunately if they come from a large commercial grower they might be crossed with something undesirable. but if you can get some apples that grew in someones backyard with a couple of good varieties, seems chances are better it will be something good.

other commercial grocery store fruit seems more likely to be from hybrids/ grafted and then less likely to make great fruit, especially the common stuff cause its been messed with for so long.
or at least this is the logic, but i really sense that even with some hybrids, its easier and more possible than i hear people repeat.

i look them up one by one when i am wanting to try to start the seeds. but get some conflicting reports, and mostly people are stuck to the you cant get good fruit from seedlings theory, which i dont think is true.

a lot of the "weird" stuff, fruit that isnt as commonly commercially produced, has viable good seed that will produce.

also the stone fruits, peaches, nectarines, apricots, some (most?) plums, berries of course, a lot of tropical fruits, lemon and other citrus - these will produce something very similar to the parent= "true to type". theres probably more, but thats what i know about that has a better chance of getting good fruit, even people who subscribe to the idea that fruit seedlings dont make great fruit, say these are a better bet.

especially citrus, its highly likely to be able to produce good fruit very similar to the fruit you ate. theres some orange types and a few other cultivars that isnt true for (cultivars that have been bred and messed with, grafted), but most citrus will be good from any citrus fruit. even if it came from a grafted tree(??)
however they say that they grow extremely tall (doesnt sounds bad to me) and get more thorny, as well as take a long time to produce fruit.

i have a lot of young yellow guava, papaya, passionflower and passionfruit (pushing my climate a bit with these)
wild grapes and cultivated grapes, plum, cherry and other stuff that i am just now starting, and
lemons from our lemon tree started from seed.
with these i discovered citrus likes to be soaked IMMEDIATELY after being taken from the fruit, never dried out at all.
i did that and now have 30 or so young lemon trees. =)

except for the grapes and passionflowers, i got these all from out of fruit itself, which to me seems way better- fruit seeds dont store well.
i also think adding a little of the fruit pulp, as in not cleaning the seed off that well straight from the fruit and just right away planting it (or in fridge), helps. i think the seedlings like the sugars from their own pulp (my random opinion/intuition).

i've purchased a lot of seeds for different fruit trees and havent gotten a lot of them germinate, but i keep trying.
well i have gotten a few to start, but like only a couple of a whole packet or something.
just about anything where i had the fruit itself and started immediately worked out way better.
and i ve got a bunch that are wintering now, either outside or in my friends fridge, so hoping for the best with those.

got a good feeling about the ones i just ordered, some date plum =) mulberry , and a lot of other stuff, excited!
we will see if i can get some of those going. plus whenever i eat a good fruit i tend to save the seeds...but sometimes i forget to start them quick.
but over all i have had less success starting fruit seeds from seed companies, and really excellent success starting the seeds right from the fruit. the papaya and guava came from some fruit my friend in hawaii sent me, so nice and fresh =) they sprouted quickly but are generally easier to sprout than other fruit.

it can take a LONG time to get fruit to sprout, and most need significant cold time in fridge or outside.
well thats my 4 cents =)
best of luck

My attitude towards fruit trees is variable.

If you have a small yard, you may not want to waste space/time on trees that won't produce for you.
Can you afford to wait 4-5 years to find out? And then start over again?

With ample land, it is entirely different. So what if you don't like the fruit?
The hogs and chickens will gladly feed on them. Free food/treats.
Most cider is made from apples considered inedible for humans.

At the very least, 'bad' fruits make 'good' compost, or worm feed.
If/When you decide to chop them down, many fruit trees are highly desirable for smoking meats.
Their good hardwood will provide more BTUs than will conifers.

I don't think there is such a thing as a 'useless tree', but with limited time/space you need to be more selective.

I am very eager although not impatient, and as for land use. I have access to acres. I will try to start getting seeds from tree's grown locally, and germinating them. Does anyone have links to resources on how to do this correctly?

Jordan Lowery wrote:

Really I find a lot of the talk is regurgitation of what other people say. It's like sepp holzer says you never know until you try it.

great point. There is not much to loose especially in this case- growing trees from seed.

Brandon Karhu wrote:I am very eager although not impatient, and as for land use. I have access to acres. I will try to start getting seeds from tree's grown locally, and germinating them. Does anyone have links to resources on how to do this correctly?

yeah theres lots of ways to get seeds, and lots of ways to start them. i've been into seed trading, and got a lot of good stuff that way. i sometimes gather seeds and cuttings from wild plants too, or local plants that others are growing, its a good way.

its a pretty huge topic, cause different plants are different. so you need to figure out the best ways with each plant.
correctly would probably depend on who you ask, theres a lot of ways to do this correctly, the ways that work.
some people have complicated methods that they swear by, others just throw the seeds in a pot. both of these can work out.
i've never made seedballs, but i think its a great idea.

by default, planting seed in a prepared area in the garden and watering,
or planting some seeds shallow in some starting medium in a pot and watering it- works, the simple way. at least for a lot of veggies and such.

but then theres some some seeds that like warmth, some that need cold, some that have to be germinated with light.
so you gotta figure out which ones like what and figure it out as you go along.
for germinating with light you can start the seed on a plate covered with saran wrap in water.
i usually soak seeds for a while before planting them and use a little hydrogen peroxide.

theres also the plastic baggie method, with a wet paper towel wrapping the seeds and then put it in the baggie to sprout.
stuff that needs to be chilled can be started in a plastic baggie in a fridge, or outside if its cold enough.
if you experiment you should find a way that works for you.

some common mistakes- too deeply planted seed, not knowing a seed needs light to germinate, too wet - moist is better than soggy, and too hot. people think that all seeds like to be hot, and true for many seeds warmth is good. other seeds need cool temps and baby seedlings often prefer cooler rather than hot. but then you have pepper who love it to be super hot.

most seeds and seedlings like warm but not hot, some like cool. fruit and trees often like extended cold periods, cold stratification.

here something from my book marks, theres lots of references online.

http://www.backyardgardener.com/tm.html

i like that this one says which ones need light.
since i figured that out, how to start those better and which specific ones, i can get certain kinds of seeds to start that i couldnt get going before.

oooo and this site is good one.

http://forums2.gardenweb.com/forums/exseed/

theres tons of info and seed swaps.
sometimes people offer free seeds, if you post something like *young gardener wants seeds* you will probably get some generous traders to get you started.
for a self addressed stamped envelope, a SASE, some of those folks will send you seeds. or get some seeds gathered and then list what you have to trade and swap.

theres other online swap places too...thats one i have done a lot of seed trading on and gotten some excellent stuff.

I'm into this somewhat but I don't mess with pears. Peaches grow so well from seed it's almost silly not to. Had kind of a mixed bag with apples in terms of results, but even crap apple (crapple?) trees are good for cider/wood/fodder, so I figure if you've got the land, it's worth it.

My understanding is that pear trees grown from seed have an extremely long, thorny and frustrating "juvenile" period before they bear fruit.

Supposedly that's where the phrase "plant pears for your heirs" comes from, cause you're likely not going to live long enough to enjoy them.

A logical midway point is to grow rootstock from seed and then graft cultivated scion wood onto them. I'm on a scion exchange email list where people swap them for free, and there's loads of quality-fruit bearing trees you can find that could always use a little "tactical winter pruning" if you get my drift. Nicking scion wood from found trees is still experimental enough to be fun but you'll likely get better results with less tries than going off seeds. I've got eyes on a whole bunch of choice neglected apples in abandoned yards and parks around here and I'd be trying that this coming year if the damn rabbits hadn't completely decimated every rootstock in my stooling bed.

11 years ago I planted seeds from apples from the store that were very tasty. I don't remember what they were. The seeds produced three trees, all of which were browsed by deer. One tree never really recovered from the browsing (it never got more than 2' tall). Another was also pretty stunted and prone to disease, although in the last 2 years it has put out lots of disease-free growth so I am going to keep an eye on it. The third tree recovered from browsing right away and took off. I moved it to the edge of the yard and it continued to flourish. About 5 years ago it produced its first apples, which were surprisingly good. Last year it produced about 50 apples, nearly all of them were really good. See this thread on the Home Orchard Society forum: http://www.homeorchardsociety.org/forums/viewtopic.php?t=5392

So if you have the space and time, I think it is definitely worth growing trees from seed. As others have said, if it turns out to be a dud, 15 minutes with a chainsaw and it is gone.

Here are some of the apples:


Here is the tree, with my daughter. I named the variety after her ("Miss Jessamine").

Brandon, Instead of cutting down the saplings that don't fruit you can graft "scion wood" (very cheap) onto the saplings or I think you can also take cuttings from a tree that you know produces good fruit and graft it onto your saplings.

I found this from Sepp Holzer's book. His technique is to use the mushy left overs from cider making as his seed supply. He says the fermentation helps to germinate the seed. That makes sense to me because in nature the animal's stomach ferments the seed before depositing it with natural fertilizer. Anyways, He says he just takes this slushy, fermented left over cider junk and throws it where he wants trees. He says that because the tree spent it's whole life in that place it doesnt have any shock from transplant.

Good luck and enjoy!

Last year I moved trees, grown form seed, from the mountain ranch to a ranch in the high desert. The trees grew in one season more than in all the years in the mountains, because of the longer season and warmer clime.
Any tree you grow from seed can be used as root stock, if you decide, for sooner or different fruit, grafting is fun and opens new horizons of enjoyment. Trees love it, trees I have known personally have told me so. I regret not bring back a particular fruit seed, from Asia minor, that cannot be had here.

Plant all you can, you won't be sorry, unless you put off doing it.

I have trees in an upstairs window, destine for the lower ranch. We planted lots of fruit trees last year, not nearly enough apple trees yet.

Dave, your comment really inspired me. It's great to see apples from the tree you grew from seed. I put a bunch of apple seeds inside a mason jar between moss. It's in my refrigerator to re create the overwintering so i can germinate them. I am going to also try peaches from seed, I just need to start buying organic peaches from the store or something.

I was at work one day doing landscaping and a apple tree was hanging over the fence from the wetland behind the customers house. Lucky for me the apples where ripe and worthless to the home owner. About half of the harvest fell onto the grass and started to rot away. I filled up my huge hiking backpack with the rest, I probably got 100 apples. I made the best apple sauce I've ever eaten. The next day at work my boss cut the tree down!!! I was devastated! I looked at the wood and the stump. It appeared to be grown from seed, no graft union. This was one of the reasons i wanted to start growing trees from seed, but anyways... After the day's work i went behind the fence with a couple shovel fulls of sandy soil and buried the stump about 1 ft. deep. I going to go back in a couple weeks and collect the root stocks, if they are ready.

Your daughter is very pretty by the way.

Judith Browning if you are on here still do you know where I can get some of the Blood Peach seeds or would you have any to share?

Jason Pitzer wrote:Judith Browning if you are on here still do you know where I can get some of the Blood Peach seeds or would you have any to share?

Hi, Jason.....here is my thread about these peaches https://permies.com/t/23607/trees/Propagating-Blood-cling-Peaches This year the trees barely had peaches at all and I just planted any pits here on our land.
The year before though was a huge crop and I was able to share seed, although I am not sure how well they germinated......anyway I didn't have any seed to spare this year although if you look through that thread there was at least one other person with seed and I think it was a free stonerather than cling blood peach...I got a few seeds from them and am hoping to see them pop up this spring.
Good luck.......

I've done it a lot with peach seedlings, individual plants die so fast, i'm glad the fruit is good tasting by growing seedling plants, so I can have a lot more trees than I otherwise would have just with the bought grafted cultivars.

I know, I know this is an old thread, but it was promoted and I read the whole thing and then realized there's nothing recent! So I left the thread and thought awhile. After all this time what results were gleaned from those of you who grew fruit from seeds.

Judith Browning
Jordan Lowery
S. Bengi
Leila Hamaya
Dave Miller

Dave you got one out of three apple trees to fruit in 6 years. That's considerably better than the war stories about growing from seed proclaim. That's what I'm interested in. Are the results of your efforts better than what the common knowledge tells us? Do your fruits taste better than you expected? Do you get quicker results, smaller trees than the giants they tell us results? Have you grafted to any of your seed grown trees?

Again I apologize for restarting an old thread, but I think it's a great chance for us to learn from those who've done it.

John, thanks for reviving this thread.  Let me see if I can answer your questions.

John Duda wrote:Dave you got one out of three apple trees to fruit in 6 years. That's considerably better than the war stories about growing from seed proclaim. That's what I'm interested in. Are the results of your efforts better than what the common knowledge tells us? Do your fruits taste better than you expected? Do you get quicker results, smaller trees than the giants they tell us results? Have you grafted to any of your seed grown trees

Actually I still have 2 of the 3 trees I grew from seed.  The first one "Miss Jessamine" is still being well received.  I have given out hundreds of scions.  I'll be taking a bunch to the Home Orchard Society propogation fair on Sunday.

I'd say that the old adage that you cannot grow a good apple from seed is not true.  As the saying goes, if I would have known it was impossible to grow a good apple from seed, I wouldn't have done it.

I would say that the fruit is about what I expected.  I doubt it will win any taste contests (though the flavor is well above average), but it has other desirable (to me, at least) qualities:
- seems to be quite disease-resistant in my area, which is fairly uncommon.
- has a bit thicker skin, which at first was a negative but the huge plus for me is that makes it somewhat resistant to insect damage.

I did not get quicker results with this particular tree because I didn't know any better.  I recently grew some more trees from seed I planted 2 years ago, and I will be grafting them next week.  So I am learning :-)

The tree does indeed want to grow big, but I just keep it pruned like my other trees.  I have also grafted it onto semi-dwarf rootstock, so I actually have two Miss Jessamine trees now.

Yes I have grafted many varieties onto the original Miss Jessamine tree, they are doing well.

I have not yet named the second seedling tree.  The jury is still out as to whether it is worth keeping.   The fruit thus far has been fairly small, and I haven't yet won the battle with some creature to leave them on the tree until they are fully ripe.  

The tree seems to have a semi-dwarf habit, which saves a lot of pruning :-)

I think it would be great if more people grew apples from seed.  It is super easy, and if you end up with only 'spitters', just keep trying.

Dave, thanks for responding.

Your story, and the telling, is inspirational. I think there's intentional misinformation about growing fruit, specifically, apples from seed. The story about taking 10 years to produce fruit bothers me. I found a study by Clarence C Vincent for UMass Amherst in 1896-1916 that debunks the 1o year misinformation. He has a chart in color that shows the time to first fruiting for 3 different apple crossings. The vast majority of the seedlings first produced fruit at 4, 5 and 6 years. By the 10th year there was almost 0 seedlings produce fruit for the first time. I've posted it before and someone would come back a few posts later and repeat the same old lie.

I'm wondering if his results were because he had a controlled germination. If you have a crab apple pollinator will it take 10, or more, years to produce fruit. If your pollinators are both an apple will you get a high percentage of good apples. Good tasting, good size fruit. If one of the pollinators is a crab will the results be what the stories tell us. It's a shame that we've never studied, really studied crossing apples. Actually I think this has been done, but not published. I think there are those in the industry who advise using a crab pollinator in an orchard to save the sales figures for seedlings. We have this centuries long story about Johnny Appleseed distributing apples over the old northwest and how they were mostly spitters grown from seed from the cider mill. It's my opinion that if you want crab apples you use seed from crab apples. If you wanted cider apples you get the seeds from a cider press. But if you wanted table apples you'd want seeds from those apples. But if in your fields you have crabs spaced out amongst your orchard then you'll get the results they tell you about. And that's what they want.

If your only interest is growing apples from seeds then I'm guessing you need to control your input to get the desired results. I'd go so far as to say that if you took two self pollinating apples, Golden Delicious, Rome, MacIntosh for instance, and hand pollinated the blossoms that you'll get very similar apples from the trees grown. The same study above reported that you get either apples like the father, like the mother, and an occasional wild card. That's not a quote, but close. What's important to me is that if the mother and father are both Golden Delicious you'll likely get an apple very close to a Golden Delicious. To me it also makes it obvious that if you want to increase the size of your orchard, from seed, that you get rid of any crab apples.

There is a property that I'm working to restore to a more natural state as part of my job that has a lot of fruit trees growing wild that I think came up from seed. Most are apples but there are some cherries, plums, and pears too.

I have tried the majority of the apples and none of them have been spitters. There are some really great varieties that I'm hoping to cultivate later on.

All these fruit trees have been ignored for decades and just do their own thing. They are on heavy clay soils near saltwater with some growing just feet from the tidal areas.

I think this site is a great example of how seed grown fruit trees can produce good fruit and be very resilient. I have seen very little signs of insect damage on most of the fruit. The plums are the best I have ever tasted and there are some very interesting apples.

I'm debating growing fruit trees from seed at my place. Would be a lot cheaper and I would love to have unique and locally adapted varieties.

I would check out oikos tree crops. They have allot of seeds for fruit trees at a great price. Some of their "ecos" varieties are semi wild and they select the seeds they sell from the tastiest strongest trees in their orchard.

I am just about to start some mulberrys . Fingers crossed
David

I've had pretty good luck germinating mulberry seeds. Go for it!

Grow grow grow....i love growing fruit from seed currently i am growing seabuckthorn ...myrobalan plum apple pear mullberry and american persimmon pretty soon chestnut and hazels also hoping to get some walnut or hickory ....my advice is to know the requirements for these trees like stratification time  as well as zone hardiness of the parent plant... it takes time to grow them to maturity for a number of these trees it can take anywhere from 3 to 10 years but don't let that discourage you when you propagate trees this way you are adding to the gene pool and you can end up growing something that tastes amazing or is highly disease resistant  or both i highly recommend doing so especially because this is the natural way that plants continue to survive ...i honestly plant trees to guerrilla garden them in places all around town soo i can create food that is for people and animals alike and once you establish a random tree the birds and the deer just bring those genetics all over ...if you like this watch twisted tree farm akiva silver grows thousands of trees from seed its amazing.

Jordan Johnston wrote: currently i am growing seabuckthorn

Are you growing the wild variety or a cultivar? I can’t find seeds from cultivars (I do have a wild seed). Dug through the whole internet it seems, all in vain...

Tatyana Piven wrote:

Jordan Johnston wrote: currently i am growing seabuckthorn

Are you growing the wild variety or a cultivar? I can’t find seeds from cultivars (I do have a wild seed). Dug through the whole internet it seems, all in vain...

seabuckthorn seed that i have purchased does not say if it comes from a certain cultivar i purchased the seed from incredible seed company...im sure if asked they would gladly awnser.

Sepp talks about just spreading the mash from pressing fruit for cider/juice/schnapps on fresh terraces or anywhere you want to establish fruit trees. He is very much into the notion that the tree that sprouts on your land and survives browsing will have the best root system and will, at the very least, be near ideal as rootstock for grafting. I dream of employing this technique if I ever have land. For now I am planning to plant seabuckthorn that is currently stratifying as well as local elderberry and currant seed this summer. SEEDS SEEDS SEEDS!

I have grown a mulberry from seed successfully bit then moved from Ontario to Saskatchewan so was not able to move with it. I have 6 Hardy Chinese peach trees that I successfully grew from seed. The key to peaches is to crack the pit a little. I stratified them in the fridge for a while and then they sprouted. Out of 7, they all sprouted, one had some mold on it and didn't survive. I have grown a lot of other trees from seed as well. Don't let them dry out.

A Crossman wrote:I have grown a mulberry from seed successfully bit then moved from Ontario to Saskatchewan so was not able to move with it. I have 6 Hardy Chinese peach trees that I successfully grew from seed. The key to peaches is to crack the pit a little. I stratified them in the fridge for a while and then they sprouted. Out of 7, they all sprouted, one had some mold on it and didn't survive. I have grown a lot of other trees from seed as well. Don't let them dry out.

Did the peach seeds sprout inside the refrigerator?

John Duda wrote:I know, I know this is an old thread, but it was promoted and I read the whole thing and then realized there's nothing recent! So I left the thread and thought awhile. After all this time what results were gleaned from those of you who grew fruit from seeds.

Judith Browning
Jordan Lowery
S. Bengi
Leila Hamaya
Dave Miller

Dave you got one out of three apple trees to fruit in 6 years. That's considerably better than the war stories about growing from seed proclaim. That's what I'm interested in. Are the results of your efforts better than what the common knowledge tells us? Do your fruits taste better than you expected? Do you get quicker results, smaller trees than the giants they tell us results? Have you grafted to any of your seed grown trees?

Again I apologize for restarting an old thread, but I think it's a great chance for us to learn from those who've done it.

my gardens and 100's of fruit tree seedlings of many types, are all back in california, and i have been travelling a bit and all over the place around the northeast for a year now.
my gardens got the ultimate in survival of the fittest /STUN test last year...not only without me to baby and water them but also nor cal was crazy last summer, epic heat, epic wildfires, flaky landmates who dont water enough, etc. poor gardens =(

but we will see, after all the intense winds of change settle down ...whenever i finally make it back to california -what managed to get by and thrive in spite of this.

most of the trees i had been growing from seed were between 2-4 years old, and so had not produced yet, but were finally starting to be really something, growing larger fast.
there were a few seedling cherry, plum, and peach trees that had been planted there (6-7 years ago) that had just been coming into production when i left...and starting to get decent enough harvests with dozens of fruit. plums, cherry, peaches, other stone fruits are pretty reliable from seed and maybe don't take as long.

the peaches tasted just like the mother tree, but were a bit smaller. several other spots had some volunteer peach trees that were doing very well.

stephen lowe wrote:Sepp talks about just spreading the mash from pressing fruit for cider/juice/schnapps on fresh terraces or anywhere you want to establish fruit trees. He is very much into the notion that the tree that sprouts on your land and survives browsing will have the best root system and will, at the very least, be near ideal as rootstock for grafting. I dream of employing this technique if I ever have land. For now I am planning to plant seabuckthorn that is currently stratifying as well as local elderberry and currant seed this summer. SEEDS SEEDS SEEDS!

Okay, I'm totally going to try this after I make applesauce this year.  I have two wonderful apple trees on the property that have been producing well for 30+ years and I know they won't last forever.  Starting them over again with their seeds would be so great.  I was going to try it when I was a kid because I loved the applesauce from one of them so much.  But my dad said it couldn't be done.  This thread gives me hope.  

I'm going to try it with nectarine and peach pits too.  I will look for more detailed information on that since the question about exactly how to do it wasn't answered yet.

Sonja Draven wrote:

stephen lowe wrote:Sepp talks about just spreading the mash from pressing fruit for cider/juice/schnapps on fresh terraces or anywhere you want to establish fruit trees. He is very much into the notion that the tree that sprouts on your land and survives browsing will have the best root system and will, at the very least, be near ideal as rootstock for grafting. I dream of employing this technique if I ever have land. For now I am planning to plant seabuckthorn that is currently stratifying as well as local elderberry and currant seed this summer. SEEDS SEEDS SEEDS!

Okay, I'm totally going to try this after I make applesauce this year.  I have two wonderful apple trees on the property that have been producing well for 30+ years and I know they won't last forever.  Starting them over again with their seeds would be so great.  I was going to try it when I was a kid because I loved the applesauce from one of them so much.  But my dad said it couldn't be done.  This thread gives me hope.  

I'm going to try it with nectarine and peach pits too.  I will look for more detailed information on that since the question about exactly how to do it wasn't answered yet.

yes i think it can be done, and i bet the results of those two isolated apple trees have a good chance of producing similar tasting and quality as their parents.


it's much easier than you might think to grow peaches from seed. just stick the peach pits in prepared soil, a pot of starter soil, or directly where you want the trees to grow.

then let them sit through the winter, called "cold stratification", and a bit of shade is good with light watering here and there.

in the spring many of them will sprout, i have found peaches are good germinators and you get a lot from fresh seeds.

they do need 4-6 months of winter chill, and then will sprout once the soil warms up sufficiently.

this is the best way to start almost ALL fruit tree seeds. tropicals and such generally don't need it, but apple, pear, plum, cherry, etc all require the cold period, moist and cold storage for 4 months, before sprouting.

Thanks, Leila!  The property doesn't have any peaches/necatarines/apricots and I'd like to try them and see how they do so will try this method you suggested.

There are some pears that have some sort of disease and when I'm back on site, I will take some good pics and post here to see if anyone knows if it's fixable or they need to be cut down.  They have never been happy there and I'm not sure if it's neglect, poor soil, etc.  The apples and the plums have always loved it where they are.