I looked at this little Cherry Crush on Bud9 today and it has blossoms! The tree is less than shoulder height, so I probably shouldn’t let it fruit, but I’m pretty tempted to leave one or two (assuming the coming 25-30 degree nights don’t decide for me.
You can also see a few of last year’s Skillcult seeds in an airpruning bed in the background.
The strange stick in the foreground is propping the tree up a bit 
So one one my seedlings has what appears to be apple scab. Should I cull it, spray it or let us grow out?
Good question! It will depend on what you are trying to do.
If you have more place available than seedlings waiting to be planted, I would let it grow out, as long as the disease doesn’t kill it. But do make a note that this one gets spots on the leaves.
It may turn out to have other good qualities - it may turn out to be resistant to mildew - or drought - or coddling moth, or have phenomenal flavor, but it will get scab if next year and the year after that the same spots appear, so that will be good to know.
If any other qualities appear over the coming years it may still be valuable or useful for growers who live in a climate where that is not an issue.
If on the other hand, you are selecting seedlings for your own garden or another very limited space, and if you have twenty new seedlings lined up to take it’s place, than by all means, cull it and give it’s spot to a new candidate!
I’m sorry you found scab on your seedlings. If you have the room, I’d keep it growing & see what happens.
You could try pulling one of the leaves off each to see what enfolds.
I think it’s fascinating to see the diversity in traits even in young apple seedlings.
Both seedlings are from my fireside seeds. The one on the left is a fireside x pinker lady. On the right is a fireside x jellybean cider. Both planted at the same time and have about the same number of leaves.
My first foray into growing apples - so im going into this really not knowing too much. My buddy has old established apple trees on a property he just purchased in Cooperstown NY. So im growing them in my backyard a foot apart for the season and next cut them down and graft (probably pay someone?) them onto his trees.
Chestnut Crab X Muscat De Venus (4)
Muscat De Venus X Gold Rush (4)
Clarion X Muscat De Venus (3)
Gold Rush X Dutch Master (5)
You could have an apple shrub.
Then again I’ve also had some that hug the ground. Years later they seem puny compared to their brethren.
Apples are pretty forgiving with their grafts. If you have the parent tree in the ground its a great opportunity to cut scion wood then practice. Failures may cost you time but at least you are not shorting yourself the materials.
Yeah, I’m wondering if it’s just a runt, or, given Jellybean Cider is a parent, if it will be columnar. This is my first year growing out more than a few seedlings, so it will be a fun adventure in learning!
I had a Topaz seedling that was like that. For the whole of its first year it barely grew upwards but produced all its leaves in a rosette. In subsequent years it did begin to grow upwards but it’s still noticeably dwarf compared to the others. It’s in its third year now and seems to be doing OK. I expect it’ll naturally be a smaller tree on its own roots, but time will tell.
I think the one that did that to me was a pink parfait open. Still pretty shrubby but it seems to be a healthy sort of shrub.
Over the weekend my Hella Pom Crab crosses started to show differences in the two siblings. 26-2 blushes. Probably time to move them to larger pots if I want to avoid root binding.
Re: jellybean cider - many of the (edit: only based on my 8) seedlings with jellybean cider as pollen parent have shown a similar trait. Short internodal distances are probably a great marker for more squat/dwarf cultivars, maybe on own roots or maybe rootstocks would alter that.
I have:
6x sugarwood x jbc, 1x Williams pride x jbc and 1x tomboy crab x jbc.
This afternoon I found quadrifoliate cotyledons today on a goldrush x hard candy cider.
Muscat de Venus x cherub that I potted up to a 4g the other day and left in the greenhouse to see how it would go. I got a bunch of 1g/3L pots now though which is a lot less potting mix to squirrel together. Although we have plenty of wood chip as a pot topper.
Full set bar that MDV cherub, seems to be happy out of the house and in the inherited tiny polytunnel:
I’ve been mapping out some rootstock spacing too using 1m spacing between plants and between rows, offsetting the next row planting spot at the 50cm/midway gap of it’s neighbour.
This is more for 25 or so m27 and g213 (M9/B9 size Geneva). I have a few grafts from this year that can go in but the majority is for grafting seedlings onto one day.
This doesn’t fit many but I think the seedlings themselves will probably go in a different section next season with tighter spacing. There is a whole train line fence boundary that might just be best as a seedling hedgerow but the nettles and brambles would probably be harder to tackle through it.
Interesting. I bought some william’s pride x jellybean cider as well, although mine aren’t large enough to notice any trends with yet. I’ll be interested to see if the same is true with mine!
@busch83 Thats good to know. I guess I’ll have a decent amount of scionwood for each variety to try a bunch of grafts. And the trees are quite established, apparently 40+ years old so im not too sure if they were on rootstock or own roots apples trees. My buddy trimmed them early spring so we will see if they even fruit out.
I totally forgot I wrote this post! haha
@Papa_esh How are yours going? I got pretty good germination out of mine
@chewytree yo! Not too bad, over 75% mostly. None of the sam young x golden russet broke though!
There is a little bit of what looks like powdery mildew on some of the polytunnel seedlings after potting on and watering in. I realised the floor covering of an impermeable sheeting probably raised the humidity too much coupled with some grey and dreary weather compared to the recent sunshine.
Emptied it all out today and relaid the floor with cardboard over existing very dry woodchip. Left the door open (no rain due).
Ordered an fungicide/mildew spray that I can add to the mix tomorrow.
Hopefully all caught in time.
Some of last year’s seedlings are looking strong. If only I had used the garden marker instead of a regular permanent marker, then I would know which ones are which 
They’re looking great either way! I’m in the process of attaching labels with my torn up map from last season. You’re not alone!
Planted out my first crosses from seeds made with Skillcult pollen yesterday. McIntosh x Cherry Crush, Fireside x Pinker Lady, and Fireside x Jellybean Cider. It’s exciting to finally be at this point after a year of pollinating and protecting apples and hoping for seeds and then hoping for them to sprout. This is quite the long game. 
(Below picture right before they were planted outside in a garden bed)
