Malus domestica from grocery store apple seeds.

[Eckhoffw]

Decided to create this thread to document my findings and development with regular old grocery store, apple seeds.

The majority of mine, I believe to be Honeycrisp, sweet tango, or pink lady, as those are our families faves.

I can find a lot of information on crabapple bonsai, but there’s much less on regular apple. I understand there’s probably a lot of crossover., but would love to hear if anyone has knowledge with the domestica varieties.

Here are what they look like today.
Batch 3 - 2nd season

Batch 2 -3rd season:



Batch 1 -4th season
I Currently have another tray inside under lights for batch 4. I will separate that tray and develop as some single trees.

 

[Shibui]

Domestic apples are essentially the same as crab apples but have been selected for larger fruit so just treat them as for crabs.

Remember that any plant grown from seed is essentially a new variety. Seeds come from pollination so will have a whole new mix of genes, usually from 2 parents so the 'mother' variety can only give you a rough guide to how the new tree might turn out as it will have genes from the pollen donor (father) as well as from the 'mother'. The genetic mixing is further confused by the parents already being crosses from other varieties.
As each seed holds a new and different genetic mix each of your seedlings will be slightly different. Fruit may be different colour, size, shape or taste. Trees may be taller or shorter. Some will be pest and disease resistant, some not so much. The list goes on and on. When breeders try to develop new apple varieties they collect and sow thousands of seeds and raise the trees until fruiting to see how each is different. Only a very small percentage of those seedlings are worthwhile taking further to test their hardiness and fruit storage potential. I think you'd have to be part crazy to be a breeder producing new varieties.

Apples take a few years to mature before they can flower and fruit. It may take even longer when kept in a small pot so don't be surprised if you don't get flowers for 5 years or more.

Hope your little group does well.

 

[Mad Tabby]

Just an FYI about apples (family of BC commercial growers here). The seeds don’t breed true. All of the commercial apples come from grafts. BC fruits (and I’m sure other places) cross breed and when something produces a fruit they like they graft it onto root stock and send it out for test runs. Then after the test runs the apples either go commercial or the trees get pulled & burned. I cried when a favourite tester got rejected because “it looked too much like an Emperess”

I mean for bonsai, great! Go for it! But don’t expect to get honeycrisps. BTW, the fruit gets larger if they’re cross pollinated.

 

[ERClover]

These look like they’re doing great!

I have an old common pear in my side yard that has produced an army of seedlings this year. I germinated some seeds over winter and have one remaining seedling left. I got great germination but many of the resulting seedlings just kinda withered away, though they seem to do amazing in the ground as they are everywhere right now. I think I took them outside too quickly and transplanted too early resulting the the sole survivor that is lagging behind its naturally sown brethren. I have a crab that is doing great too they are fun and seem pretty hardy. Hoping it flowers down the line.

 

[Shibui]

Hoping it flowers down the line.

Don't hold your breath while waiting. Pears are known to take a long while to mature. There's a saying 'Plant pears for your heirs' meaning it takes many years for them to mature and start flowering and cropping. When pot grown it can take even longer for seedlings to mature enough to flower.

I germinated some seeds over winter and have one remaining seedling left. I got great germination but many of the resulting seedlings just kinda withered away, though they seem to do amazing in the ground as they are everywhere right now.

Why bother to germinate seed when nature does it for you and, by all accounts, much better. Simply dig up some of the seedlings and transplant into a pot.

 

[ERClover]

Don't hold your breath while waiting. Pears are known to take a long while to mature. There's a saying 'Plant pears for your heirs' meaning it takes many years for them to mature and start flowering and cropping. When pot grown it can take even longer for seedlings to mature enough to flower.


Why bother to germinate seed when nature does it for you and, by all accounts, much better. Simply dig up some of the seedlings and transplant into a pot.

I did it to see if I could and have fun and experiment. It’s nice knowing which of my trees I’ve had from the very start of their lives.

 

[Lorax7]

I’ve grown apple trees started from seed collected from grocery store fruit before. My experience was that they were all rather weak trees that were quite prone to disease, mostly fungal issues. None of them survived for more than a couple of years.

 

[Leo in N E Illinois]

Apple trees from seed, go for it. Nothing wrong in doing so for bonsai. Some will be vigorous & disease resistant, keep those. Compost the seedlings that are weak and disease prone. Most apple orchards will plant one "pollinizer" variety for every 10 or 20 trees of a given variety apple. The "pollinizer" will depend on apple variety, often a tried and true heirloom variety apple or a crab apple, chosen for heavy pollen production and timing of pollen production. It is really quite a science. In Michigan where I observed this first hand most orchards would also rent bee hives to facilitate pollination. My AgExtension agent would come around with notice of prohibition to prevent spraying of pesticides while any of the adjacent farms to our farm had bees actively pollinating orchard crops. For the blueberries, we rented bumblebees, because bumblebees were better at pollinating blueberries. Notices were posted on our behalf too.

Point is, from seed, the fruit quality will be inferior for eating, likely being between eating apple and crab apple.

If you plant 1000 apple seeds a very few, don't know how many, will begin flowering in the 7 to 10 year range. A few more, maybe one third, will flower in the 10 to 15 year range. Another third will take 15 to 20 years and the rest will take longer than 20 years to flower. Obviously for our bonsai purposes we only really want to keep the first handful that flower, unless the others have some unique character such as bark, very short internodes, or other traits making them unique for bonsai.

Now the GREAT thing about apples is that they graft easily and also air layer easily. And there are whole organizations dedicated to maintaining heirloom varieties. Many heirlooms have small enough fruit, say around 2 inches or less that they can be used as medium to larger bonsai and their fruit won't look too out of proportion. If you like, investigate heirloom apples, pick one or two to experiment with and then purchase grafted trees. After their trees are established in your yard, you can layer off a few pieces for bonsai.

Also Evergreen Gardenworks has cutting grown crab apple varieties at very reasonable prices for first year, and thru his specimen catalogs sometimes older material is available.

Evergreen Gardenworks

 

[Leo in N E Illinois]

Actual apple breeding programs do not like waiting 10 to 20 years to find out what fruit quality a seedling will have.

They take buds from 3 or 4 year old seedlings and graft them onto mature flowering age branches. These grafted buds will then go ahead and produce flowers within a year or two. The quality of fruit produced will then tell them whether the source seedling should be propagated for further testing or eliminated.

 

[ERClover]

The whole world of grafting is amazing. Reading the for love of Prunus Mume thread blew my mind.

 

[TrimmyWhimmy]

There's an amateur apple breeder called Skillcult on youtube that has interesting content. He dispels the myth that seed grown apples are likely to taste bad. https://www.youtube.com/@SkillCult

 

[Shibui]

He dispels the myth that seed grown apples are likely to taste bad

Agreed. All the dessert apples we know and love were once seedlings.
It is not that seedling apples will tase bad, it's more about the proportion that will tase better than those currently available.
Past breeders were mainly concerned wit taste. Modern breeders are looking for disease resistance, transportability, coolstorability, colour and shape as well as the taste factor. It is much, much harder to develop a new apple now.

My experience was that they were all rather weak trees that were quite prone to disease, mostly fungal issues. None of them survived for more than a couple of years.

Interesting experience. We often use seedlings from a variety called 'Granny Smith' as root stocks. They are strong and fast growing and don't sucker much so make great root stock for crab apples. The fact they come from supermarket is beside the point. The seed is still the same and is not affected by either cool store or transport. Maybe the particular variety you like to eat is the reason for the lack of vigour?

 

[Lorax7]

Maybe the particular variety you like to eat is the reason for the lack of vigour?

Perhaps. My seeds came from a variety called Pink Lady.

 

[Shibui]

Pink Lady was bred in West Australia. It's a cross between Lady Williams which was a chance seedling also from Australia and Golden delicious which came from another self seeded tree on a farm in West Virginia.
Note that both those really popular apples were just seedlings that happened to grow on farms. No specific breeding or selection.

Pink Lady is a very nice eating apple and one of my favorites. I have not grown seedlings but can't see why it would be less hardy or vigorous.

 

[Mad Tabby]

Actual apple breeding programs do not like waiting 10 to 20 years to find out what fruit quality a seedling will have.

They take buds from 3 or 4 year old seedlings and graft them onto mature flowering age branches. These grafted buds will then go ahead and produce flowers within a year or two. The quality of fruit produced will then tell them whether the source seedling should be propagated for further testing or eliminated.

I had a wonderful 5 species hardy apple graft. Then the moose got to it. That was a major issue. If it wasn’t the mice & voles eating everything under the snow it was the moose turning a 6’ tree into a stub.

Kind of glad to be back on the prairies.

 

[nuttiest]

I have some seedlings too! They are in the ground, planted this spring across from a row of pomegranate. They will one day arch and touch each other, and I named it frootunnel but don't call it that just yet. Small trees.

 

[Leo in N E Illinois]

Midwest Fruit Explorers - a Chicago area based group dedicated to backyard fruit growing, Mostly apples, many members specialize in heirloom varieties. But they cover a wide array of fruit. WEbsite has a few articles that may inspire other rabbit holes to wander down.

Join MiDFEx - Midwest Fruit Explorers

Join MidFEx and learn to grow fruit in your backyard like an expert! Only $20 per year! (or $30 for 2 years or $35 for 3 years) Our application is in pdf form. Please print out and mail in. Some of the benefits: Socialize with …

midfex.org