fruit trees from seed

[mostaza]

I have a few acres available to me to turn into an orchard. I have plenty of energy but lack finances. My solution is to start planting as many tree seeds as I can get my hands on so to have rootstocks for grafting onto later. Is this feasible? I will do a lot of independent research but thought I'd start here.

[applestar]

While this may work with *some* species, my immediate concern would be that just as you won't know the characteristics of fruits grown from seed, you won't know if the seedlings will or will not have desirable root-stock characteristics, such as cold-hardiness, soil tolerance, disease resistance, etc. I suspect that there are specific varieties whose seedling offspring are known to be more suited to being grown for root stock than others.

It might be interesting to keep careful records if you do this.

[paul wheaton]

Over the last few months, I have collected the seeds from about 140 different apple trees. I am carefully tracking the variety that they came from.

My impression is that from these seeds, you have a 1 in 20,000 chance of coming up with a marketable variety: something that can compete with the stuff currently in grocery stores. On the other hand, you have a 60% chance of coming up with a perfectly fine apple tree, a 20% chance of a tree that is debatable whether it is good or not, and a 20% chance of a "spitter": the fruit is just nasty. So for those last 40%, you might want to graft on some of you better stuff.

One big perk of growing a tree from seed: a taproot! It will go deep for water and minerals! There is a long story about the details of this taproot, but for now, let's just leave it at "this is a huge perk!"

Overall, I think growing from seed is an excellent idea. And, since this is a [url=https://www.helpfulgardener.com/forum/viewforum.php?f=30]permaculture[/url] forum, I would like to stress: plant lots of guild plants too! And plant other good permaculture trees in the area. In permaculture, and orchard is bad, a food forest is good.

[Ofer]

I would suggest, to use some seedling to as stocks and graft them, so it will not cost you much and you can still get good trees,

so all you need to do is grow your seeds for a while and than get some cuttings from trees that you like.

and graft them- not too hard
let us know how it worked for you?

[mostaza]

Where might one find seeds for rootstock?