Growing Apple Trees from Seed Naturally

Hi,

I'm wondering if I can get some help identifying this plant. I assumed it's an apple tree growing from some seeds that my son placed in a planter, but I'm not certain! Am I caring for a weed or an apple tree?

Thank you in advance!

Ed

Hi Ed, welcome to Permies!

Looks like you've got an apple seedling. It looks very similar to how mine look. I think I can see some small branches forming lower down, which is great.

Hope you get some tasty apples!

Steve

Phew! Thanks Steve.

At this point, is there anything else I need to do to care for the seedling besides watering it?

It looks good to me right now, yeah I'd just keep watering it. When it goes dormant in the Fall and loses its leaves, I'd plant it in a permanent location in the ground if you have a spot for it, and cover the ground around it in fall leaves, which will help hold moisture and build fertile soil as they break down.

Keep us updated on how it's doing!

Steve

I am wondering how much do you all follow the suggested spacing for apple trees? My seedling apple is already over 5 ft tall with multiple branches, seems like it's going to be a big one. With 35 ft spacing, I have only one spot available, if going down to 20 ft,  I have more choices then. Or I can move a couple small ornamental trees out of the way. Also, when is the good time to transplant, late autumn or early spring?

I'm currently spacing mine pretty tight, and the seedlings even tighter. My theory is that a lot of them may not work out, so by spacing them tighter initially, I'll waste less space, and then if I need to remove a tree that doesn't work out, its space can be filled by a good tree beside it, and that space isn't wasted.

I currently space my grafted named variety trees about 8 feet apart, and plan to do my seedlings about 4 feet apart since they have more of an unknown factor, and with about 10 feet between rows. 4 feet apart may seem tight, but with the 10 feet between rows they can expand in that direction more while being evaluated on how good the fruit is.

Sounds like your tree is doing awesome May!

Steve

I stumbled on this PDF years ago and I'm using it as authorization to violate all the standard spacing guidelines:

https://justfruitsandexotics.com/wp-content/uploads/JF-Multiple-Fruit-Tree-Beds-1.pdf

May Lotito wrote:Also, when is the good time to transplant, late autumn or early spring?

Late autumn has worked really great here for me, right when the leaves fall off the trees. It gives the tree a chance to get well established and grow some good new roots by the time next spring and summer come around.

In areas with severe winters though, it may be best to plant in early spring, after the severe freezes have passed and the ground is thawed. This gives the tree a chance to get more established during the spring and mild summer and prepare to harden off well to get ready for the upcoming severe winter.

Michael Helmersson wrote:I stumbled on this PDF years ago and I'm using it as authorization to violate all the standard spacing guidelines:

https://justfruitsandexotics.com/wp-content/uploads/JF-Multiple-Fruit-Tree-Beds-1.pdf

Planting trees closely by the group! That's interesting. I happen to have four trees: peach, pear, mulberry and this apple seedling on four corners of 12 ft rectangle. No other big trees nearby so even lower branches get lots of sunlight. Maybe I don't need to move the apple tree.

May Lotito wrote:Maybe I don't need to move the apple tree.

Like the PDF says, you're just doing what nature has always done. I'd rather have our food forest look like a clumsy, haphazard jungle than a precise gridwork of well-behaved trees.

olin erickson wrote:Things are taking shape, but 4 years here and I can’t seem to grow anything except flowers on my fruit trees.

I can relate to that. Actually, we have 3 trees that were planted 7 years ago and we still haven't gotten flowers from them, let alone fruit. I need to do some research this winter to find out if there's anything I can do to promote flowering, or if there's something I'm currently doing to inhibit it.  

I collected several seeds from plum apple apricot etc then accidentally mixed them up but got one to grow in a pot after wintering them in my fridge then outdoors in early spring. I have many more seeds to try growing this coming season. I put the only one I have in a pot because I plan on selling my place but so far that hasn't happened cause I haven't found a place I can live with…forever.

I've planted some apples from seeds about 6 years ago. Both that survived bore fruit. Small, very crisp, and tart/sweet. One tree almost all fruit were eaten by possom. The other tree was left completely alone. Not sure if this is down to the different genetics of the 2 trees, but I was glad that we didn't loose both!

Megan Styles wrote:I've planted some apples from seeds about 6 years ago. Both that survived bore fruit. Small, very crisp, and tart/sweet. One tree almost all fruit were eaten by possom. The other tree was left completely alone. Not sure if this is down to the different genetics of the 2 trees, but I was glad that we didn't loose both!

That's a pretty quick jump from seed to fruit. Good for you.

My liberty on dwarfing stock croaked above the graft, but not before I got some seeds to try. Glad to see they are resistant to cedar apple rust, I forgot that, and I definitely saw it on a cedar tree this year. They are various heights, the tallest being about 7 ft. I am going to keep them trimmed, don’t want them blocking sun to my paw paws.

I have heard that a trained tree is more healthy than a grafted dwarf. So We will see.

We've been planting apple seeds whenever we find a sprouted one inside an apple. I think they are easy to find when you have apples that have been sitting in cold storage for a year. Not the best tasting apples but lots of sprouting seeds! At our current house we planted a whole bunch of seeds into pots 6 years ago and then neglected them for a year. The 2nd year we planted the survivors out into our "orchard". And then ignored them, mowed over a few, let them get overrun by blackberries, accidentally weedwhacked them and allowed deer and voles to munch on them.

Last year was year #5 and we were pleasantly surprised to get our first apples on the biggest seedling. I guess it's a type of crabapple which would make sense since a lot of orchards have crabapples planted with their named varieties to help with pollination. It gets absolutely covered with gigantic pink blossoms in the spring and loaded with clusters of fruit that look like giant cherries. My kids call them "cherry apples". They are very sweet. You can eat one in 3 bites which is great for the kids who sometimes like to only take a couple bites from fruit before getting a new one. I'd like to try cooking them whole and running them through my food mill to get the seeds out. They would make a delicious sauce.

This year was a repeat performance. Absolutely no watering. It got a little limp looking during our crazy June heatwave but it didn't hurt the fruit production.

(Edited to fix some typos that were confusing.)

Awesome looking trees and story Jenny! So cool!!

[quote=Jenny Wright] we were pleasantly surprised to get our first apples on the biggest seedling. I guess it's a type of crabapple which would make sense ... [/quote]
You can't really tell from the picture but the tree is a single tree with lots of branches from the base. This came in handy last winter when rabbits tried to girdle the base of most of our trees. This apple tree only had nibbles on the sides of branches that were facing outwards and none were completely girdled.

I do wonder what its bushiness will mean for it when it gets old. Will the branches grow together? Will the close branches at the base make it more susceptible to disease? Will the base be less sturdy than a single trunk? I assume it will just keep sending up suckers but I don't think that's a bad thing since it's a seedling and all new growth will continue to grow the same fruit. It will be interesting to see what happens with it.

Hi , I'm doing the same here in Jamaica check out my apple nursery

My Videos Growing Apples in Jamaica

After cleaning up the tomato bushes, I am able to take the end of season pictures of the 7 month old apple sapling. It is essentially a 6" ft stick with some short branches.  Still I feel this growth rate is pretty fast for an apple tree.

Wow, yeah I'd say that's extremely fast! It must have a really good spot and be well adapted to your area!

I'd like to share this article about young tree with lots of short branches and why it's better NOT to clip them.

https://gardenprofessors.com/inspecting-nursery-plants-part-iv/

I have just set up a pot of potting mix and compost and scattered all the seeds from a batch of "Lady Apples" that were gifted to me in there. These are a variety of crab apples that are apparently being trialed by some commercial orchards - when I look for genetic information I only find articles on the provenance of the Pink Lady Apple, which these are definitely not. I have no idea if I'm hobbling myself or making things harder than they need to be by using a cultivated crab apple. I can't wait to see what happens!

Just started a new batch of some seeds since the apple I cut open had 15 seeds, 12 of which already had nice roots. I am unable to just toss them in the compost so onto the counter they go!

I intend to plant a bunch of apple seeds later this fall. I will wait until an old, local apple tree's apples fall. Harvest those. Cut in quarters. Plant in very shallow holes with a small amount of humanure. This to me seems to best mimic what happens in nature. Since the deer and elk only 'plant' very few of these each year on my property (10 acres of former pasture) I thought i'd help out this year. I've read all the posts above and while doing more may be more effective per seed, I want less effort since I want so many starts, want starts over a large area, and will not be watering over our summer drought period since doing so requires more time and effort than I am willing to invest.   Any thoughts/suggestions?

I will put protection around any/all successful starts I can find in the next few springs so the elk don't eat them in winter/spring.

Barbara Kochan wrote:I intend to plant a bunch of apple seeds later this fall. ...   Any thoughts/suggestions?

Have you ever watched "The Permaculture Orchard" on YouTube? I really learn a lot from him. Stefen has a few videos about how he direct seeded a large area and the results and what he learned a year later and what he plans to do differently next time. It's very interesting.

Thank you soo much Jenny. I've not seen these. i have the first cued up for my edification and enjoyment. Gratefully, b

This guy's activities are encouraging and inspiring.

https://skillcult.com/blog/2022/9/17/tasting-seedling-apples-mid-september-2022

Update of my seed grown apple tree.

It grew 6 ft the first year 2021 and doubled the height on the second year. I intentionally planted lots of annuals around to limit sunlight near the base and removed several lower branches in early winter. As you see it has a central leader and many lateral branches coming out almost horizontally then arching upwards. I found some fat buds on short spurs too. Are those fruit buds?

It definitely looks like it to me!

The tree looks great too May, such a nice natural open shape!

My Honeycrisp seedlings didn't end up making it. They weren't adapted very well to our heat here I think.

I have some other seedlings though that I started this past Spring, and two or three look like they may have some potential.

Hope your apple tree fruits this coming year! Can't wait to see how it turns out!

I came here To ask about growing soles from seed. I know fruit trees are almost always grafted, but wouldn’t it be better if we could grow trees that naturally produced desirable fruits and grew on healthy rootstock? How can we achieve this?

** sorry, typo, meant apples

Bethany Brown wrote:I came here To ask about growing soles from seed. I know fruit trees are almost always grafted, but wouldn’t it be better if we could grow trees that naturally produced desirable fruits and grew on healthy rootstock? How can we achieve this?

Hi Bethany! I think you will find that lots of permies here try to grow things from seed for exactly that reason. There are even some PEP tasks about growing different trees from seed.

Bethany Brown wrote:I came here To ask about growing soles from seed. I know fruit trees are almost always grafted, but wouldn’t it be better if we could grow trees that naturally produced desirable fruits and grew on healthy rootstock? How can we achieve this?

What I find most intriguing about trees from seed is that the seeds are imprinted with environmental information from the parent. This (allegedly) means that trees grown from seed are more tuned in to their surroundings, soil and climate compared to grafted varieties. Nature knows what it's doing, we should give it more freedom to do its thing.

Growing fruit from seeds I think is one of the best ways that we can create wonderfully delicious and at the same time disease resistant plants.

It excites me to think of the golden age in the 1800s for apples in England and pears in France where people started growing the highest quality fruits in their orchards and saving the seeds. And most of the time they didn't even have to do that, the new fruit trees would volunteer on their own, and someone would just pick the fruit and were blown away by the flavor and starting sharing it with others.

The result was an explosion of new varieties and flavors never seen before and probably since. It seems like in England a lot of varieties originated from hobby growers sharing varieties among themselves and in France it seems very similar but from owners of small nurseries.

To see what they did back then and think about what could be possible with the technology we have today to share with each other, is really exciting what new varieties we can create together!

My personal breeding goals are...
  1) flavor, flavor, and more amazing flavor
  2) extremely high disease and pest resistance with no spray needed
  3) success of the trees on their own roots with no grafting needed
  4) vigorous and fast growers that produce fruit relatively quickly

I realized that I have an apple seedling that I planted a few years ago that may produce for the first time next year, although I bet it will be the year after.

This year will be the first time that I have seeds from my own apple trees that have bred with other trees on my property that have done well here, so I'm really excited to see how those will do since I know they have bred with other high quality and locally adapted varieties. I had three produce apples this year for the first time, but am probably saving seeds from the best two. On top of the other good qualities they are a beautiful pinkish red color!

Here are some photos of the two that are completely unsprayed here, just some natural polishing with a damp towel.

Steve Thorn wrote:

The result was an explosion of new varieties and flavors never seen before and probably since. It seems like in England a lot of varieties originated from hobby growers sharing varieties among themselves and in France it seems very similar but from owners of small nurseries.

This excites me, too. A whole bunch of hobbyists can do things that big corporations are incapable of, and uninterested in.

I’m super excited to start growing!

For the past couple of winters I've started apple seedlings indoors to get a head start on the season.  These are usually Malus baccata, I grow them for rootstocks.   If you're thinking about growing apple trees indoors, I can briefly describe what's worked for me.

The seeds I'm growing this winter are from apples collected in September, the seed was cleaned and dried overnight in a dehydrator on low and then stored in a fridge. Will skip those details, apple seeds are orthodox and store well if dried and kept cold.

Around now (end of December) is when I start stratifying seed, and I give them 5-6 weeks in a cold fridge.  Seed is soaked in water for a while, this year I also soaked them in a 10% bleach solution for a few minutes and rinsed. To stratify them put the seed in a ziplock bag with a few tablespoons of slightly damp sand, label, throw in fridge.  I started 500-600 seeds this year, which was maybe a gallon of 1" crab apples.

Mid February the seed is ready to get planted.   I've tried earlier and later, this seems to be good timing.  Note our last frost date here is the end of May.

So a few days ahead of planting if the grow space hasn't been setup for the winter yet, I'll wipe everything down to sanitize it including any tables / shelves, all the pots and trays I might use, areas with potting medium, sweep the floor etc. I have a space that's maybe 10x10 in a spare room, it's enough room for 6 lights and 25-30 1020 trays, and often I'll get creative and do a 2 tier shelf or hang a light under a bench to get more area.   The reason for keeping things clean aside from the obvious is that pests including insects, mites, mealy bugs, aphids, and fungi like scab and other fungus issues are best avoided with sterile everything and good horticultural hygiene, they love to setup shop in an indoor grow if you bring in soil from outside, or even from a plant brought in from a garden center, a houseplant put outside for the summer, etc.  I'll clean and sterilize any pots or trays used before with a dilute bleach solution and soap.

When I planted in past years, I would start seeds in a tray just broadcast and then prick them out over the next couple weeks.  This can work, you just want to be careful not to J root them, use a dibble.  You can also germinate them in damp paper towel for a week and then carefully plant them as soon as there's a radical.   If I know that my seed will have a good germination rate, and I have all the trays and potting mix on hand, I like to direct sow them into cells.   Last year I started in small cells like 128 and 200s, and then after they got up to size at six weeks were transplanted into 50 cell trays. This year I'm going to try direct sowing them into individual 2.5" pots. I started using these in the greenhouse this year for rooted softwood cuttings and prefer them.

So I'll fill up a bench with 1020 tays each with around 32 of pots (4 rows of 8 pots) and I can fit 16 trays on an 8 x 3.5' table.  The trays are solid for bottom watering.  I hang 3 led grow lights over that space about 18-24" up.  The trays stay covered with some plastic lids or at least misted daily until germination.    This is a precarious time for seedlings because of damping off, so I'll turn on an oscillating fan across the room to keep up good airflow and try and get the top layer of soil / potting mix to dry out mid day.  The fan stays on for the whole grow, if you can get it to move the leaves a bit it makes the stems stronger.

I keep a google sheet on my phone with some notes and dates through the grow, this is useful if you're going to do it again. Btw try and google data like that, seedling growth rates etc for small trees, can be tricky to find. How big can the seedlings get by spring?   In my experience it largely depends on the container size, given adequate light and nutrition apple seedlings growing indoors seem to grow faster than outside, maybe it's the constant air temperature. They can put on about 1" and one new leaf per week.

I'll grow them for 3 months and then move them outside to my greenhouse during a week with nice weather, and set them on a bench under shade cloth to harden off.   I leave them in the greenhouse for about 3 weeks, working to avoid shock. I'll run a heater in case of frost but I find so long as they've hardened off for a week or more a light frost doesn't affect them.  I'll put them outside during mild weather after the last frost, and I like to set the tray on the bed and leave them for a few days or a week to acclimate to their first real experience with full sun, temperature, wind before planting.  Hardening off can be done in smaller steps, but moving 25 trays outside for an hour then moving them is, 2 hours the next day, etc has logistical issues. I use shade cloth and try and make environmental changes as small as possible, then at least a week before another change. One year I planted them during a hot sunny day and nearly killed the whole lot, they wilted and browned off most of the leaves, and then they regrew their leaves after some weeks but it set them back.  I had a few that stayed dormant the whole rest of the season - it was a good lesson.  

I plant them into nursery beds with 6"x12" spacing, so a 3' x 20' bed can fit something like 200. Wider spacing probably will give you bigger trees.  I use lots of wood chip and compost, and water them regularly when there isn't rain.   By the end of October here the leaves drop and I can lift the whole bed and group them into bundles, and at this point grade them if any are too small they get planted out for another year, the rest are good for spring grafting.  If you were growing on the seedlings you could plant them in the permanent location the first fall, or heel them in for spring. If you did some controlled crosses you could take a good sized scion after the first season.   If might be possible to t-bud them the first fall, especially if your growing season is a month or two longer than here.

Doug McGregor wrote:  I started 500-600 seeds this year

Great post. As I read it, I kept wondering, what on earth are you going to do with all these seedlings? I'm glad you added your website link at the bottom. I've done countless searches online, looking for nurseries in Canada but I keep stumbling on ones that I've never heard of through word of mouth. I'm glad to bookmark your site. Thanks.

Michael Helmersson wrote:
Great post. As I read it, I kept wondering, what on earth are you going to do with all these seedlings? I'm glad you added your website link at the bottom. I've done countless searches online, looking for nurseries in Canada but I keep stumbling on ones that I've never heard of through word of mouth. I'm glad to bookmark your site. Thanks.

Hey thank you. There are some good mail order nurseries in Canada, I've ordered from most of them and usually have a good experience with spring shipping.  I enjoy propagating and trying new things, hoping to be able to offer different options than everyone else.   For example there are tonnes of cultivars of Ribes and Prunus that can grow here but are hard to find, working to collect them.  I wish it was easier to import.  Apples and pears on less common rootstocks and their own roots are another thing I'm interested in, I have some blog posts about grafting onto wild rootstocks.  I also enjoy collecting seeds from fruit trees, native trees and everything else perennial around our area to grow and offer for sale.  This is the first winter I've had some trees available to ship in the spring, so far it's mostly been local sales.