Growing apple trees from seed

[sammus]

Cheers Jona! I want them to start budding already!

Will they flower at all this next year (though not produce fruit) or will I have to wait a few more years before they will do this?

Also, just began looking at Cherry Trees because I love the blossom on them so they may be my next project to grow them from seed!

[JONA878]

I have doubts that they will flower for a couple of years Sam. They need to get some branch structure going first.
Anyway you would not want them to waste energy producing fruit until they have grown a bit more.
The other thing to remember is that as you only know one of the parents you cannot be sure if your apples will be trees that can fruit on one year old wood or not...or even if they are triploids.
Something to look forward to.

Good luck with the cherries.

[sammus]

Yeah its going to be interesting seeing how they develop! I'm going to try doing cuttings perhaps on two of them, so I have one original, then two other variations on the original root stocks and see what I get.

Only time will tell, and will be a few more years before I get some nice apple blossoms!

[sammus]

Hi everyone,

I thought that it was about time that I posted an update of the apple trees.

I've just repotted them into larger pots, and re-caned them to give them extra support as its getting abit windy here! The first picture is pre-repotting and the second is post on the 20th August 2011:

[img]https://i307.photobucket.com/albums/nn296/bleblo1/2011-1.jpg[/img]

and

[img]https://i307.photobucket.com/albums/nn296/bleblo1/2011.jpg[/img]

The tallest tree stands at around 5ft now!

They have all began to bush out nicely, but also all seem to have the lead shoot stretching very high without many branches coming off it.

I have a few questions that I'm wondering if anyone can answer:

1) Are they due another prune to encourage them to bush out more? They've only been cut back once at the beginning of Easter this year before they began to bud properly. I want to encourage the trees to get nice and stocky so that they don't need to be supported - its not necessary at the moment but I just wanted to give them a helping hand for days when it is particularly windy.

2) How should I cane the trees? I currently have a cane on each side of them with the tree in the middle, but with each tie having some slackness to it so that they can move about in the wind and reduce stress to the trees.

3) Any other bits of advice?

Cheers guys![/img]

[JONA878]

They look great Sammus.

The first ones leader could be cut back a few buds this winter to make it produce a few more side shoots and at the same time thicken up the leader.


The second one I would also just tip back a little but I think you may have to tie down that long branch that is starting to form on the left side as we look at it, as it may well start to compete with the leader in strength. Not a problem at the moment but one to keep an eye on.

The last one looks far more bushy in its growth and the leader needs just a slight shortening to try to get it to grow away a little more.


You say that you have just re-potted them....I still think that those pots they are in now are rather small. They will be producing a large amount of root from now on and it could be difficult to keep them sufficiantly watered unless they have plenty of soil around them.
I reckon a pot twice that size at least for the coming year.
Then if you are going to plant them in the garden they should be fine for the following season.

A larger pot would allow you to use a stronger cane too.

Congrats though....they look great.
Be good to see what sort of fruit they produce in the end.

[sammus]

Thanks for the advice.

Should I be pruning them now while their still growing? I heard something about avoiding pruning them this time of year because of various diseases they can catch - that its better to do it just as their beginning to rebud? I want them to grow well and know that when I prune them they'll begin to develop more branches, but just whether its worth giving them a trim this side of Winter before they begin to lose their leaves?

The new pots are the black ones not the orange ones - do you still think that these are too small? They have a volume about three times greater than the orange ones that they've been in. The size they reached was in the orange ones, and these new black ones were meant to give them the extra room that they need . The roots had really filled out the older pots and needed a new pot!

Also, with all of these apple trees being grown from seed, I was thinking of trying to graft a different variation on at some point. Their about 16months old now so when would be the time to try and give this a go?

My other thought is that some of them have a lot of leaves towards the base of the tree - should I take these leaves off to try and encourage growth further up or leave them for now? They don't seem to be causing any harm though at the moment.

Thanks

[JONA878]

Hi Sammus.

Sorry...should have said. Leave the pruning until the winter months when the trees are fuly dormant.

Those new pots sound fine.

As to grafting onto your new trees.
If you are going to graft onto side branches to create a sort of ' family ' tree then you will need the branches to be about pencil thickness to be able to get a good 'take '.
So as soon as they are that size then you could start to graft.
Remember though that you have to cut the scions off the doner tree when it is full dormant and do the actual grafting once your own tree has started get a good sap run going in the spring.

Normal method of forcing higher break of branches is to actually remove the low growth conpletely. At the same time though you must leave plenty of leaf on the tree to get good photosythesis for the tree.....so don't get too heavy handed. just take your time over two or three years.

[Theclowndog]

Sammus, It's been a few years. Any update as to wether your Apple seedlings are fruiting or ho big they are?

[sammus]

Hi ClownDog,

It really has been a few years.

I can happily report they are still going strong, particularly in this early spell of warm weather.

They are currently around 5ft 6", having been pruned about six weeks ago. I am trying to strengthen them rather than get a lot of new weaker growth. It's quite exposed where they are planted and we get really strong wind through the winter so this should set them up nicely. That said, I want them to just grow naturally and not train them heavily at all. A prune here and there, but let nature shape them. Here are a few pictures below:







Looking at the above, they look a bit spindly at the top so I will probably cut them back alot next spring, perhaps down to 4ft to really get them to bulk out. They began to bud a few weeks ago, but the leaves have really exploded out over the last week.





They are now approaching six years old at the end of summer. They've not had any blossom yet, and I haven't grafted them onto an alternative root stock. If anyone has any advice that would be great!

Cheers

Sammus

[tomc]

First (if they were my trees) I would clean out around their feet. Oh out six feet or so from the trunk. Then I would apply bark mulch about six inches away from trunk out to or past the drip line.

As far as grafting goes, you won't be grafting new roots to this tree. Instead while both the twig you plan to use and the parent tree should be dormant in the spring. Your going to probably start with a simple cleft graft (there are many you-tube series on this) and mate the size of the twig you are adding to the branch you have nipped short. and wrap it tightly with tape (other than duct tape). Electrician's tape is stretchy, masking tape is whiter. Either will work inna pinch.

I might also start cutting off vertacle branches. Think of this as water-shoot training. Jona may over-ride me here, but thats what I'd do.

You might be entertained by a fellow who blogs by the name of "Skill Cult". His front page is: https://skillcult.com/ Have fun...

[JONA]

Hi sammus
I agree with tomc those strong uprights should go.
You say that you don't want to do too much training of your trees and you want them to grow strong.
The problem of leaving really strong growth though is that the tree can get out of the habit of cropping and just ...grow....
By controlling strong shoots you force the tree to give you weaker fruit bud bearing shoots. These do the job of controlling your tree then without having to keep forever heavy pruning.
Just let the head of your tree grow strongly until it reaches the height that you want the tree to be, then stop it at that point by only allowing the weaker shoots to remain.

[RoryDavid]

Good Advice. I agree with you and also need of very much patience and take care of little plants especially fruits categories. Don't forget watering.

[Gary350]

I recently learned the new preferred way to trim an apple tree is funnel shape so sunlight can get inside to fully ripen all the fruit. I worked in an apple & peach orchard 1968 and 1969 they trimmed their trees a special way to produce more fruit and allow more sunlight to get in to ripen fruit. Fruit will be hard as a pine board with not enough sun light. I am not a very good artist here is a picture I drew hope you get the idea funnel shape from the picture. I never learned how to fertilize fruit trees working at the orchard but I did learn they fertilize very heavy until tree is a certain height before they ever trim the tree. Once tree is large enough to be trimmed they want the root system to be 2 times larger than the trimmed tree this provides tree & fruit with enough food & water to grow lots of large fruit.

When we lived at the other house we had a 15 year old apple tree that had never made an apple. No internet back then all the information I had and tried did not work. Then I saw a TV show how to grow apples they said the worse thing home growers do is not trim their tree enough. You should trim it until you think, OH NO I cut off too much. TV show also said, trees need full sun all day other wise fruit will never be ripe. I cut down a 40 ft tall tree so apple got more sun. Every Sunday after church I gave the tree 1 cup 15/15/15 fertilizer and 1 cup Ammonium nitrate and 5 gallons of water. Tree filled out and grew 3 ft taller but following year I trimmed it and kept fertilizing it and the tree produced 14 bushes of ripe red apples. We put 40 quart mason jars of apply pie filling in the pantry and gave away 10 bushels of apples.

I am going to plant, 2 apple trees, 2 peach trees, 2 blueberry plants this year.

[JONA]

In the garden situation I think the bowl shaped tree is the most picturesque too.
Pruning on the whole is easier as it’s a more’ relaxed ‘ shape and as Gary says it’s the perfect shape for good light to get at the fruit.
In the orchard situation or in a garden where space is tight the centre leader form of growing is much more common.
First thing is the tree will come into crop earlier . ( to get a bowl shaped tree it has to be cut quite low in the maiden year to induce the required branching..this cuts a couple of years of its run to full cropping).
Secondly of course is the area needed.
You can plant four centre leader trees in the space one bowl tree needs.
One thing to remember too is the rootstock.
An open centre tree is better if the stock has a little more “ power “ than some of the more dwarfing stocks.
106 or equivalent or stronger.
27 or 9 would struggle to make a good open centre tree. .....and would need staking all their life because of the poor root system.