John Duda

If my point is correct then we could examine the parents of an apple on the list for the trait, and we can look at the offspring of a listed variety to see if the attribute carries to its siblings.

Supposing you have an orchard, or planning one. And you want to add to your nursery from seed from your orchards trees. Wouldn't it be great to cut down on the time it takes to get your first fruit from the seedlings you grow. If in your orchard you plant some trees that are known to be precocious then their offspring will also be precocious. Look at the image below as evidence of what I say. That image is from a study a 100 years or so ago called A study of the results of Crossing Varieties of Apples by Clarence C. Vincent for UMass.

It becomes obvious looking at that image that you can produce fruit faster growing apples from seed than from seedlings that you have to pay for. This is probably exaggerated because the apples shown in the image are examples where both parents are precocious. The important point to get from the study is that precociousness is an inheritable trait.

So what apples are precocious, here's a list:

 Ben Davis  

 Empire

 Cortland

 Cox's Orange Pippin

 Esopus

 Golden Delicious

 Grimes Golden, same apple as Golden Delicious??

 Jonathan

 Mann

 Redfield

 Wagener

 Wickson

 Yellow Delicious (Everfresh)

 Zestar


So my suggestion is that you plant a precocious apple thru out your orchard. But how do you know which seeds will have the trait. Well I'd guess that if you harvested seed from the precocious tree that they will have that attribute. And I'd also say that if your precocious tree was also a delicious apple you'd get some very good,early bearing apples.  Let's say you have a Cox's Orange Pippin in your nursery. Some say this is the best tasting apple there is, and it's an early bearer. If you plant seed from apples from that tree I'd guess you're going to get better apples from a cross between a cider apple and that crab apple next door.

I've been saving gourd, squash, and pumpkin seeds for years. I rinse the seeds a couple times and then dry them on a  paper towel. When they're dry I carefully stack them on top of my tomato and other paper towels full of seeds. My tomato seeds I don't rinse so they stick. The seeds above, since they are rinsed, don't stick The reason I say carefully stack them. They're fine the following spring, I never tried growing them in later years. I'm going to test that next spring as they raided the pumpkin patch this fall. I don't save seeds from hybrids, so don't buy hybrid seeds any longer.

I've found that if I leave gourds and pumpkins in the garden they come up next spring on their own. If I leave any of these varieties unfenced they don't come up. I think they get eaten. I've seen 16" pumpkins disappear over night, nothing but the stem left.

I like beets. I've never knowingly eaten dirt. But using beets as a guide, then I guess I like dirt! Clean dirt is best!..... I guess. Maybe it'd be a good idea to use a brush on your beets before you scald them.

William

I found this search page with a link to an online order link which includes a cart like online shopping everywhere on the internet. But the 2018 catalog still has some useful capabilities. I find it interesting to just scroll over the 80+ pages looking for hidden nuggets that I'd never think of searching for.

I've ordered and found some gems that I can't resist. Like Niedzwetzkyana, Redfield and Roberts Crab. Niedzwetzkyana is the Kazakhstan apple with red flesh that was used for several apple breeders to develop the red flesh apples line RedField, Pink Pearl and others. Redfield is a merger of Wolf River and Niedzwetzkyana. Pink Pearl was developed using an apple called Surprise and the same Niedzwetzkyana apple again. Roberts Crab is another red fleshed 2 1/4 inch crab apple. I'd like to cross the Niedzwetzkyana with a juicy apple like McIntosh, or maybe something bigger and just as juicy to get maybe a red dessert apple.

Myself I think I'd be more interested in Antonovka seed than the serveseii  ? variety.

If you're looking for nothing but detailed info on a specific apple there's a wealth of info on any variety you click on. You do need to use a horizontal scroll bar to read it tho. That's where I got the size of the apple above.

If you're looking for trees and bushes in quantity look at musserforests.com.
Examples:

Elderberry: 25 rate= $1.13 to to $1.78 depending on size  (years) 300 rate is 35¢ to 55¢ea
Hazelnut,, S
Shagbark Hickory
Sugar Maple = 45¢
PawPaw 25 rate = $3.08ea
Persimmon
American Plum
Serviceberry
Black Walnut 300 rate 50¢
Honey Locust 100 rate = 74¢ 300 rate = 45¢
Black Locust = 35¢

Many items also have 5 and 10 quantities available. They have 4 pages of Evergreens, including most, if not all, of the trees grown for Christmas trees. They have most of the hardwoods tree seedlings and some bushes including Rho's, Laurels, and Azalias = 300 rate = $1.65 ea.

Ron:

I read that as he was saying that any tree will be dwarfed by the climate. I also noticed that he said "A well Trimmed tree"

There's an interesting discussion at this thread.

Dr. Redhawk stated:

"usually people who raise horses are not going to use any herbicides in their pastures.
If you are collecting manure that has self composted for more than a month, you are not getting any residual wormer contamination either."....

I felt comfortable after I read that, but then it seamed to get contradicted by some of the later comments. Also the hay that's used comes from an unknown, to me, source. I think that I'm better off growing my own veggies than what's for sale in the store. Shortly after that thread I was told by someone I know that her father used a herbicide on his family garden plot before he plowed it. I think that old pile might be 5 years old, more or less. I don't know why there'd be worms in the soil below one pile and not the other. The piles are maybe 50 feet apart and on the same hillside. But I have no idea what might have changed over the years there.

We all need to eat. I'm going to grow some of my own veggies. I've never used bagged fertilizers, herbicides or any kind of ick products. I don't spray for insects in my gardens. I'm not 100% comfortable with the manure, but then what was in the ground before I bought this place?

I'd prune only the branches that don't produce Honeycrisp apples. If a branch produces Honeycrisp then it's above the graft. If I wasn't sure now or late this winter, I'd let it grow till I knew what it was.