Several weeks ago I planted a dozen or so apple seeds in couple of pots. In hindsight I should have recorded what seeds went in which pot, but I wasn’t concerned since I thought the chance of them taking was slim. I was wrong…
The seeds were one of the following. Southern crab apple, Pink Lady or Cripps Pink ( these are the same apple, Pink Lady is just a variety of Cripps Pink, right?)
The southern crab apple seeds were sent to me by someone on the site. The pink lady/cripps pink seeds were taken directly from apples I’d recently eaten. Decided to plant because they looked like they were already beginning to germinate inside the apple. Which tells me the apples must have been pretty old.
Here’s the result. I realize these are years away from being able to do anything with them, and I’m certain not all of them will survive, but it will be interesting to see what they do. Long term my plan is to use them for grafting wood on my other trees.
Yes. Pink Lady = Cripps Pink. Cripps is the original name of the original strain.
When trademark club growers produce Cripps that happen to meet certain criteria for quality (in their climate attain a certain desired shape and pink hue) then they can screen those out and market them as Pink Lady.
Despite the wishes of the Trademark Police, the name Pink Lady is so catchy, that many of us use the name illegally with impunity.
There are various strains and genetic “sport” mutations of the apple. One I really like is the Pink Lady “Maslin” strain. It ripens 2 to 3 weeks earlier than the original-- lengthening the front-end of the Pink Lady season-- and key for growers in my climate whose season is just long enough to grow good Pink Ladies. Some years - if summer is short - the original Cripps fails to ripen in time before cold autumn days are upon us.
Knowing that the Cripps originated in a hot climate like Australia makes me think I might have chance of it doing well down here…no worries about cold autumn days until usually late November, sometimes even December.
If it grows to huge standard tree that wouldn’t bother me in the least…
I want to start a few out in my pasture. It really doesn’t matter if they are that good to eat I mainly want them for the deer. Right now until I get enough trees started I have been planting black eyed peas for the deer.
They really like the M9 Rootstock. It sounds like a really nice rootstock. I just am not willing to support all my trees… Maybe… I should consider a change.
I was just jesting… I have almost if not 200 trees on M111 and at my age… I don’t see my hobby taking that big of a change. Now @Matt_in_Maryland he’s still a young whipper snapper… he is still in the building stage… I’m just playing with my out of control hobby…
Good way to weed them out (seedlings) is to take any slow growers/diseased trees and toss them. I know i’ve had seedlings that have had CAR and i got rid of them. I also have a few in ground seedlings that are much bigger (MAtt is right…they like to grow)—prune prune prune.
after about 2 and 1/2 months the apple seedlings are still doing well. knock wood. weather has been in the mid 90’s pretty much every day since June and I’ve kept them in a moderately shaded area that gets sun but is out of the scorching mid-day heat. If I get lucky a couple of these might make it to trees. For my grandkids…
Updated picture of apple seedling. We’ve had a ton of rain recently so I was worried it was going to drown, but it seems to be doing fine. Amazes me it’s been able to survive the summer heat down here.
I’ll have to get back with this thread in a couple of months.
I started a bunch of seeds just to see what happened and most of them made nice 2-3 ft whips which I then grafted to known varieties (a year later). Most of them took and then I lost interest because I had no need for full size trees.
Anyway, I let them die in their little 1 gallon pots but I saved one…
It looks like it’s going to make it and I am going to plant it out beyond the orchard and see what happens.
Someday after I’m gone there may be a great big tree in my yard.
I grew out a bunch of seedlings and budded them to a mature tree…things are just waking up here so hopefully the buds will come alive and maybe next year or 2 years i can see what they do. I’ve had a few seedlings fruit for me…nothing too exciting so far…one ended up being a crab-ish type apple…but it has big pretty blooms.
One thing I’ve noticed around here is that seedling crabapples (most are crabs, a couple are apples) don’t get gnawed on by rodents much. Deer also seem to browse the young growth less than a grafted/named cultivar.
