Am I right?

[Powder]

I had a friend who had several wild crab apples on his property, I have no idea what kind they are. They're about an inch in diameter. This past fall I saved about 100 seeds and plan on trying to grow them over the winter.

My question is this: if I am able to get them to grow, will this create an acceptable rootstock to graft 'real' apples to? I would like to do this for two reasons. 1. is to get edible apples and 2. to help with pollination.

Am I on the right track?

 

[Powder]

One more thing. The main purpose of planting crab apples was to feed deer near my foodplots. The edible apples is a bonus. I'm hoping the trees will have crabapples and edibles in an ideal situation. Worst case scenario is the crabapples grow and provide good food for the deer.

 

[chickenlittle]

It will work just fine.

 

[sandbur]

When I grew crab apples from seed, I tried to save very one. My suggestion would be to take the 30 or 50% that grow fast and take very good care of them. Discard the rest.

 

[chickenlittle]

Probably good advice from Sandbur. I recall another post from last year where the guy said about how inconsistent his seed grown rootstock was and how much he liked working with purchased clone rootstocks (http://www.habitat-talk.com/index.php?threads/t-budding-season-its-almost-here.5566/#post-109254). But as long as you are happy with the results, it should work out just fine.

I am curious what your plan is once you get the trees started indoors? Are you going to plant them into the final location in the spring, put them in a nursery for a year and transplant, or keep them in pots for a while? And when/where/how do you plan to graft some of them.

 

[Powder]

My plan is to start them indoors and transplant them into their final location in the spring. I'll cage and protect them. This is all assuming I get them to grow! It's not that I can't grow things but I am a novice at this.

As for grafting, I'm not sure of my plan with that yet. If these crabapples were to grow well and produce just like the parent tree, I would be perfectly fine with that. The three main reasons to graft was to help with pollination, spread out the drop times and a distant third was to be able to eat them. I like the idea of growing food for deer without having to plant it every year.

I'm assuming I will need to wait 2-3 years before I can start any grafting so I've got time to figure out what to graft later.

How old do they need to be before I can graft onto them?

 

[chickenlittle]

How old do they need to be before I can graft onto them?

Depends on how you want to graft and how they grow. If you want the whole tree to be something else, you could do summer bud grafting or spring grafting with a cleft or whip/tongue graft over the next 1-3 years. As soon as it is about a 1/4" diameter, you could graft to it. Or you can let trees get older, maybe until it fruits, and decide to cut it off and bark graft or maybe just graft something else onto a branch or two. But it could be a long time until you see fruit from these seedlings.

I would be tempted to put tree tubes on ones you plan to graft to get them growing faster and then cage after you graft.

 

[yoderjac]

I had a friend who had several wild crab apples on his property, I have no idea what kind they are. They're about an inch in diameter. This past fall I saved about 100 seeds and plan on trying to grow them over the winter.

My question is this: if I am able to get them to grow, will this create an acceptable rootstock to graft 'real' apples to? I would like to do this for two reasons. 1. is to get edible apples and 2. to help with pollination.

Am I on the right track?

I'm dong something similar. I've got two threads going right now. This one describes my first attempt at growing crabs from seed and then grafting domestic apple scions to them: http://www.habitat-talk.com/index.php?threads/apple-planning-phase-transfered-from-old-forum.5536/ That was my first dabbling with apples. I also grafted some to M111 last spring and just planted them in the field this fall. This year, I'm expanding and increasing the volume. I'm sort of putting together a "how to" thread here: http://www.habitat-talk.com/index.php?threads/starting-apples-from-seed-indoors-how-to.6613/

When you plant apples from seed, you never know what you are going to get. As I understand it, deer don't eat all crabapples. This makes sense as I have an ornamental crab in my yard and even the birds don't really eat the tiny fruit. They say some crabs are truer to seed like Dolgo than others.

So, I plan to do several different things:

- I'll just grow some out and see what fruit I get.
- I'll graft some in the first or second spring after planting in the field but leave a nurse branch for both pollination and to see what kind of fruit the crab produces.
- I'll also graft to M111 for comparison.

So, it looks like the path your are on is very similar to the one I'm on. I'm just a year or two ahead of you.

Thanks,

Jack

 

[yoderjac]

When I grew crab apples from seed, I tried to save very one. My suggestion would be to take the 30 or 50% that grow fast and take very good care of them. Discard the rest.

Interesting advice. I'd like to hear more about this. Most clonal root stock is dwarfing. I think dwarfing is because it is not vigorous in a vegetative sense. I don't mean growth hampered by disease or lack of nutrients or something like that. I mean that they are genetically inclined to move from a vegetative growth state to a fruit production state early in life.

So, here is the question. If we cull trees that are not vigorous growers because of disease or lack of something your suggestion makes perfect sense. On the other hand, if a tree is not a vigorous grower because it has dwarfing tendencies, we may be discarding great root stock.

I'm not stating any of this as fact, just conjecture based on what I've learned so far. I'd like to what you and others think about this.

Thanks,

Jack

 

[Jhoss]

A suggestion: Your Nursery should be easy to water. Your seedlings should be grown in in-ground roottrapper bags for easy dig-up / transplant and great root wads.

 

[yoderjac]

A suggestion: Your Nursery should be easy to water. Your seedlings should be grown in in-ground roottrapper bags for easy dig-up / transplant and great root wads.

I'm growing mine in above ground rootbuilder II containers. These are more expensive than the in-ground root constriction bags but you don't need to dig up the trees and the container unwrap making root ball is completely undisturbed when planting.

Thanks,

Jack

 

[chickenlittle]

I've moved to a raised bed nursery for apples. I like the ease of watering (or not) and I have not found digging up and transplanting to be a problem. With above ground pots, I need to water more and worry about how to protect during winter cold if not planted by fall. In ground pots are just an unnecessary expense for me.

 

[yoderjac]

Yes, the Rootbuilder II pots do require more water than some other options. If water retention is an issue, the PVC coated above ground roottrapper bags are an option as well. I certainly understand the overwintering issue. For trees like pawpaws that are photosensitive for the first couple years that I keep for several seasons, I had to deal with the overwintering issue. For starting apples from seed, I find one growing season in containers is plenty. If you look at the Apple Planning thread I referenced several posts back, but starting in the winter under lights and transplanting from 18s to 1 gal to 3 gal RB2s in one season, I was able to grow seedlings in the 5 to 6 food class in one growing season. Planting them in the fall at that size removes overwintering issues and provides the benefits of the root pruning container system.

If I was doing it commercially, I'm not sure I would grow this way, but it works great for my purposes. Interesting how each method has different advantages and disadvantages. If I was ever to try growing in a bed at scale, I would look hard at the Missouri Gravel Bed type system for root development.

Thanks,

Jack

 

[sandbur]

If rowing apples inside the house, they need to be hardened off when you move them outside. If you grow tomato plants in the house, you know what I mean.

 

[sandbur]

I suggested throwing out the slow growers and concentrating your time and money on the fast growers. Give them the best care.

Some of my crab apple seedlings developed an odd growth pattern and never amounted to anything. It is hard to describe. I need to check the old 'puter for pictures. They would not send up a main trunk, but would have many side branches. This was evident when they were only 2 inches tall or less. Disease , genetics, who knows... my suggestion, pull those out and move on.

It is always better to plant a dozen apple trees and take very good care of them instead of 50 that get marginal care.

 

[yoderjac]

I suggested throwing out the slow growers and concentrating your time and money on the fast growers. Give them the best care.

Some of my crab apple seedlings developed an odd growth pattern and never amounted to anything. It is hard to describe. I need to check the old 'puter for pictures. They would not send up a main trunk, but would have many side branches. This was evident when they were only 2 inches tall or less. Disease , genetics, who knows... my suggestion, pull those out and move on.

It is always better to plant a dozen apple trees and take very good care of them instead of 50 that get marginal care.

I know what you mean about odd growth patterns. I did a bunch of reading before I started this. One of the things I read specifically about was triploid apples, the odd number of chromosomes, and how most seeds don't germinate or create deformed trees. I think there is a difference between a normal tree that is not a vigorous vegetative grower and an abnormal seedling.

Great point about acclimating them to the outdoors. I'll be trying something new this year with the trees I'm starting under lights this winter. In previous years, I tried to time the transplant from 18s to 1 gal RB2s to coincided with the middle of April which is our last threat of frost. I would transplant them and move them to my lower deck that only gets a little direct morning sun. After a few weeks I'd move them to my upper deck which gets more hours of direct morning sun. This worked well to avoid sun scald. However I noticed a period of slowed growth for a while before they took off again. This year I plan to transplant fewer trees to 1 gal RB2s sooner but keep them indoors under lights until mid-May. I think that even though the outdoor nighttime temps were above freezing, they were cool enough to confuse and slow down the tree which was used to 70+ degree temps. I'm sure the sun will be a bit more intense in May requiring slower sun acclimation but I want to see if I get a more sustained growth pattern.

As for a few trees with good care verses 50 with marginal care, I'm going the other direction. Most of the trees I started with require near zero maintenance to produce. My goal is to reduce maintenance as much as possible for wildlife trees. I will apply a high level of care to seedlings before they are transplanted to the field. I don't mind a small amount of care in the early years, but I want volume and I can't provide good long-term maintenance for volume.

Thanks,

Jack