Is it an apple sapling?

I have some apple trees on my property and was walking around recently and found I have about ten nice saplings (scattered around) which look a lot like the little saplings right under one of my known apple trees. I'm wondering what is the best way to determine whether or not a sapling is a young apple tree? I don't much care "what kind" of apple it is. I just want to know if it is an apple sapling or not. Are there tell-tale signs? Are there good field guides for saplings? I wouldn't mind being able to ID saplings in general, but, for the moment I am most curious to find out if these saplings are apple trees in the making.

Well, I do feel that this might be cheating a little, but I've used an app called PictureThis with great success. You take a picture of the leaves or flowers of a plant, and it will check over the Internet and come back with what it thinks it is. I was able to figure out all sorts of things using it. I think it was $25, but for me it was well spent. On occasion it might give several suggestions because it wasn't sure, and often it gives a generic version instead of a specific variety.

Other than that, I would say you can use books and general observation. Look at the shape and color of the bark, leaves, branch patterns, etc. You should be able to figure out if its in the same family with some observation and notes.

Daniel Arsenault wrote:I have some apple trees on my property and was walking around recently and found I have about ten nice saplings (scattered around) which look a lot like the little saplings right under one of my known apple trees. I'm wondering what is the best way to determine whether or not a sapling is a young apple tree? I don't much care "what kind" of apple it is. I just want to know if it is an apple sapling or not. Are there tell-tale signs? Are there good field guides for saplings? I wouldn't mind being able to ID saplings in general, but, for the moment I am most curious to find out if these saplings are apple trees in the making.

Or you could post pictures on here.

Matt McSpadden wrote:Well, I do feel that this might be cheating a little, but I've used an app called PictureThis with great success. You take a picture of the leaves or flowers of a plant, and it will check over the Internet and come back with what it thinks it is. I was able to figure out all sorts of things using it. I think it was $25, but for me it was well spent. On occasion it might give several suggestions because it wasn't sure, and often it gives a generic version instead of a specific variety.

Other than that, I would say you can use books and general observation. Look at the shape and color of the bark, leaves, branch patterns, etc. You should be able to figure out if its in the same family with some observation and notes.

Picture This is awesome.  It's a 7 day trial, and after that $20 a year.  I just installed it last week and I've already gotten more than $20 worth from it.

Apple trees are pretty distinctive looking from a very young age, so if you think they are apples, they probably are.  I spot them all over my land.  As Hester said, if you post pictures, someone will be able to help.

Thanks for the suggestions. I'm going to get some tree ID guides. I like to use Shazam to identify music, but I'll never use an app to identify a plant. Just can't do it. I like the old fashioned field guide approach for that! Ok, here are some pictures or some of them...

I have to say I'm inclined to think not apple.
The leaves look a little too elongated and smooth to me. This will vary probably however. How do they compare to your mature trees?
My apple leaves are more wrinkly and shorter in aspect. here is a picture from when my apples were in bloom.


source

You can see the leaves better on the left (along with a raspberry I think) much more wrinkly.

Do you have autumn olive in your area? I'm thinking they could be Eleagnus perhaps.

I agree with Nancy.  They don't look like apple to me.  Apple trees, at least mine, never have straight smooth trunks like that.

It may be Eleagnus.  It's hard to tell from your picture, but if it is, the underside of the leaves has a pretty distinct silvery look to them.