gary reif wrote:Can I just plant the apple seed in late fall and hope it comes up in spring? I'm in WI so pleanty of cold for the seed
yes thats the easiest way, and it is effective. plant lots more than you ultimately want to have, fruit seeds dont always have a good germination rate.
but its true, fruit seeds dont store well and you dont want to dry them out, so store them in the fridge until you are ready.the very best is to get the seed right from the fruit and immediately plant it after a good soak. thats the only way with citrus, they have to be completely fresh and not dried out.
with others you can get them sort of dried out, dry
enough to store and not get funky, but not totally dried and then put them in plastic in the fridge.
but right from the fruit into the planting hole or pot is the very best.
either put them in pots, or if you really want to do a lot, make a small nursery bed where you pack it full of seeds. if you know where you want them ultimately, just plant them directly. i would dig a trench or a fairly good hole, fill it back in so its a bit looser and then plant the seeds direct.
a nursery bed is a good idea, i might do that now that i have run out of pots! that way you can keep track of them better, and once you see what you have next year you can transplant them from there to a more permanant spot.
many fruit will produce a good fruit from a seed grown tree, i maintain, although many experts would disagree. it might not be exactly "true to type" as it may revert back to one of it's ancestors genetics rather than its direct parent, but still be a good edible fruit. some will actually produce true to type offspring and some varieties are very stable, like stone fruit and citrus.
the ones that are really iffy are apples and pears, they dont always produce anything desireable from seed grown fruit, but sometimes this can work out with good fruit. i think the chances of getting a good fruit, even from an apple or pear, are higher than assumed, but its a hit or miss type thing. it could work out ok, the fruit could actually be not great. that variety is one of the only ones that has stable genetics, from what i have read.
and some cherries are stable, but a few cherries will revert back to wild cherry characteristics. so if you were really attached to getting a named cultivar kind of cherry, this is another where its a bit iffy from seed, it may be like the parent you want, or it may revert back to some more wild characteristics. i happen to like wild cherries though =) so i personally dont think this is a bad thing, as long as you are not attached to getting an exact type of cherry just like its parent which is a named cultivar. other cherries will produce true to type seeds, along with most other stone fruit.
most everything else besides apples, and pears will produce edible good fruit.
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