Improving your chances of growing an apple tree from a seed

Here's an oldie but a goody. I was thinking about Paul's quote about apple seeds, because my brain was telling me "apple seeds have to be cold stratified or they won't grow." And then I said to my brain, "nature did just fine stratifying seeds long before human beings invented refrigerators.

That being said, let's talk about what sorts of things might increase the chances of the seeds germinating after we eat an apple and plant the seeds.

Does leaving a bit of the flesh of the apple help, along the lines of just burying the core seeds and all instead of picking the seeds out? Since the seeds need consistent moisture, I think that might help. I'm thinking of half a dozen more, but I want to hear what might have worked for you, or maybe an ingenious new thing that nobody has tried yet!

Jim

In fall, I make a new bed and scatter all the seeds (and some cores) from the fall apple harvest. In spring a few of them come up and some survive. Not very good germination but something.

Maybe using a cold frame could help?

Does fridge-stratifying go against Paul's notion of growing from seed? I get great germination results in the fridge and then just plant those shallowly in pots come spring. And then in the fall, plant those into the ground before the tap-root reaches the bottom of the pot. I think that's growing "from seed" -- once it's in the ground it's not available to be moved and I haven't taken up grafting.

I wonder what causes high winter losses when you just plant a seed?

My guess: excessive freeze-thaw cycles (brings seeds to the surface, kills them, roots can’t embed into soil) and rodents.

Fridge stratification works fine in my experience. I've had good germination doing 6-8 weeks in a damp paper towel in the fridge, then potting up in spring. The main thing I've found is not to let them dry out during stratification, and to plant them shallowly once they start to crack. Losses in the first winter are mostly from drying out or getting eaten, not from the stratification method itself.

My apple cores mostly get shoved into the compost caddy, which is then emptied onto the veggie garden and covered in hay mulch. Then when baby fruit trees grow I dig them out and transplant them. It's not exactly what Paul had in mind but I'm gradually running out of places to transplant fruit trees to...

Here they do tend to sprout in the compost bin! Unfortunately I rarely get to transplanting them out to a suitable location.

There's "cold stratification" and there's "gut stratification". I have been told that a lot of seeds benefit from going through and animal's gut and being pooped out in a nice plop of fertilizer!

That doesn't answer the question though... it may depend on ecosystem. Some places have long periods of very cold whereas my area gets lots of "damp cold", but not much near or below 0C.

Instead of winter-kill, we loose a lot of Mother Nature planted young trees in our summer drought.