I thought I’d start a specific thread for those that are into growing fruit trees from seed. There are many reasons you may want to do so, such as cheap rootstock and breeding new varieties, just to name a few.
I would love for people to post pics of their seedlings and update us on there progress throughout the growing season/s!
To get us started here are some apple seedlings I planted March last year on my window sill from various wild trees around my property. Notice the one in the foreground, it had 3 cotyledons (I ended up with 2 like that last year)! It grew much faster the first month compared to it’s siblings, likely due to the increased photosynthetic capacity, but the others eventually caught up and some even passed it by the end of the growing season (I tagged it though, so I can track any differences that may show up later in life, even if it becomes a rootstock this year):
Here are some freshly planted in a nursery once it got warm enough outside:
Here is the same nursery towards the end of last growing season, they’re ready for grafting this year:
Here are some selected seedlings I planted in row last summer, they will be grafted over to a known variety this spring in my “standard size” orchard (I will take the cuttings from the seedlings and graft to a dwarf root in a separate orchard and let them fruit just for kicks and giggles, ya never know!)
Something to note in this row, all the seedlings were planted at the same time and treated the same/same sun, yet I had one hit over 4 feet (!!) and another only grew to a foot and a half. The variability is what keeps it exciting!
And lastly, here are this years seedlings planted today! Apple, pear and american red plum, I’ll be sure to update throughout the growing season for those like me that love the unpredictability of what they will one day become: