Flower to Fruit, Amateur Apple Breeding Project: Intro Part 1

This is part one of my introduction to the amateur apple breeding series; wherein I will show you how to breed apples from pollination to fruiting in the quest for new, and unique varieties. Hell yeah! In this part, dispelling some myths and talking about our goals as eaters and home growers v.s. the profit goals of commercial interests and breeders.
APPLE BREEDING VIDEO PLAYLIST: • Homescale Apple Breedi...
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[@nonyadamnbusiness9887]

I want to point out something about planting apple seeds. The apples you get in the grocery store come from commercial orchards. Commercial orchards often use crab apple for pollen. So, when you plant a grocery store apple seed you are very likely to get a very small sour apple. If you want to grow an apple from seed, get seed from someone growing apples in their back yard.

[@ProfKSE]

I think the reason many people say planting a seed will get you a mostly inedible, little, hard, green apple is because most seeds would be from a commercial apple which is often pollinated by crab apples. Chances of the seedlings having crab apple attributes (small, acidic) would be pretty high. Fresh eating apples need to be sweet (for most people). But almost any apple, mixed with other varieties, will make a good cider. I make a sweet cider with at least 12 varieties, mostly dessert type apples, and it is very sweet and complex.

[@MrWildplum]

Resolved today to dedicate a row in my garden to apple breeding. Thank you.

[@SkillCult]

Always good to hear that. I'll have pollen for sale soon! I'm also trying to make a lot of cross pollinations this year for seed next year. I made a list of over 200 possible cross pollinations to make, using 46 different parents. Yes, I am insane.

[@pinkbunnywithtealeyes]

Damn I got into this outta curiosity, I didn’t know breeding apples would be so punk 😂❤

[@SkillCult]

Yeah, it's an apple revolution :). that was 8 years ago, I have real results now. kzbin.info/www/bejne/j3OrooODgJ6rg5I

[@handstack]

Great video. Looking forward to the series!

[@GFD472]

What a great work Steven! I found the video very helpful with lots of solid info.....

[@SkillCult]

+GFD472 Thanks! I think it's semi accurate ;) Working on a cool one now on extremely late ripening apples...

[@lacklusterami]

This is great and encouraging news, and I thank you for it.

[@suburbanhomesteaderwy-az]

Going though this series again. My goal is to do this on a larger scale in Wyoming for hardy apple trees.

[@SkillCult]

that's great, there seems to be plenty of hardy material to work with as a base. I've changed some things quite a bit, especially pollination and seed starting, so don't take any of this as gospel. I don't really know what I'm doing lol. You probably know the story of the wealthy apple. If not, look it up. Good luck!

[@kristingoettlicher3503]

So glad I found your series. I will watch them all. I breed tomatoes and have an existing apple orchard. I have tried grafting, cuttings, and seed stratification. I have pollinated other vegetables, but now it is time to cross apples! Maybe delcon, Viking, Spartan, and Enterprise, which I like. Time to get started!

[@SkillCult]

Go Kristin Go! :). Watch out, apples are a deep, deep well. I have or had viking, but can't recall every eating one, I don't have the others.

[@mikefisc9989]

I saw your comments in the comments section of a pinterest article about growing apples from seed and followed it here. That article claimed you could only grow rootstock from seed and not worthwhile apple trees. So glad I did. I'm now subscribed to your series. Frankly, you were the voice I was searching for on the topic as I was so tired of hearing people say you can't grow apples from seed. To me it just seemed ludicrous that it wasn't possible because the resulting apples would be undesireable. Thank you so much for your videos.

[@SkillCult]

+Billy Thekid Hey, thanks and welcome. That whole idea is so prevalent. One of those things people like to latch onto and repeat as if they know something. I think we're going to flip it on it's head though. There are certainly no guarantees, but also certainly not the horrible odds people always say.

[@ShaneGadsby]

I only recently found your channel, and was instantly inspired by your work here to put in an order for some interesting scions, and suitable rootstocks, to start trying my hand at apple breeding! I've already got a couple seed grown trees that I've been patiently waiting to see what came of them (unknown pollen, Ambrosia Crisp flower), but after seeing your amazing work with red flesh apples I made sure to grab a Huonville Crab (an Aussie red flesh, commercially sold as a Magnus Surprise) to try my self! Your multi-year progress updates are truly a testament to your tenacity, and I feel have done more to encourage the backyard gardeners to try apple breeding than any other resource in the last 30 years! Keep up the amazing work, I'm loving every post!

[@SkillCult]

Way cool Shane. Glad to hear you're diving in. There are quite a few people out there doing it, I'm just very public. I hope to continue having more pollen and seeds available, so everyone can take advantage of the progress I'm making.

[@erinobrien3506]

@@SkillCult If you have scion wood available for BITE ME! in the future, I'd love to give it a try in an high elevation setting.

[@GrownToCook]

Extremely interesting and inspiring! We're thinking about trying this on a (very) small scale here in the Netherlands. I very much appreciate the useful and well-presented information in your videos!

[@SkillCult]

If you have foundation trees that you can graft onto, it's really not a lot of effort to make a few crosses and graft them out. then it's just a waiting game. You can fit a lot of them on a medium sized apple tree.

[@wildedibles819]

Thank you very interested in growing food years ago... That's why I got them already growing lol... But I'm more into it now then back then... Wanting to learn more so thank you...

[@gordo3582]

Thanks for doing this, I look forward to watching your videos. A friend of mine grew out many trees from seed and had success, besides the false rumor that you won't likely get edible apples, there is also the rumor that it will take 10-15 years to get fruit - my friend got fruit in the 3rd year just like a dwarf rootstock even though it was grown from seed with no grafts. You may also end up with a stronger/healthier tree growing from seed with better roots. A local commercial orchard (North Star Orchards) also grows their own new varieties, they have had quite a lot of success and have a popular (locally) apple that he named and sells that no one else has (nice advantage for a commercial orchard). I wanted to cross Pink Lady with Ginger Gold to try to get a very early ripening apple that tastes like pink lady, I carefully hand pollinated and bagged the flowers, but only one turned into an apple, I carefully saved the seeds, and did cold store them with some moisture to prevent them drying out. Despite the seeds looking OK, none of them germinated, not sure why. This year I am trying again but I already have successful Pink Lady seedlings growing right now which I look forward to growing out over the next few years (unfortunately I don't know the parentage on those though). I'm also very interested in high phenol varieties, which I would love to develop further (for the health benefits).

[@SkillCult]

How did you do pollination? If one is a triploid, you may have trouble. I have used pink lady, so I know it is fertile. I usually have fairly good luck pollinating, but I have some duds or some with only one or two seeds as well. You can see how I do it in the video on pollination, though I may change it a little this year and leave the anthers in place based on some new information from a breeder saying that the apple won't self pollinate. I think it's possible, but maybe unlikely? not sure. I don't have much on it's own roots, but had thought about putting in a few this year, just to find out how it works. I don't think I've had anything fruit sooner than 4 years, maybe even 5 and out of quite a few trees. maybe there is something about your friends climate. I can't take very good care of mine and have wondered if they will fruit sooner or slower because of it. The red fleshed apples are certainly high in antioxidant stimulating substances and tend to have high tannin besides the anthcyanin pigment factor. There was a study comparing apples for that in England and they found that organically grown heirlooms were much higher. The highest was a red fleshed apple. I'm very interested to hear your results. I've used Pink Lady and it's parent Lady Williams for late hanging and Pink Lady for the flavor as well. I may use it more depending on how much further I take my apple breeding efforts. I'm really interested in working with extremely late hanging apples, crabs and red flesh. I'm going to do a video on that sometime. There's hours of viewing in my apple breeding playlist and more coming. Looks like I'll have quite a few new varieties blooming this year!

[@gordo3582]

Great. For me the biggest problem with late hanging varieties is that everything (bugs and animals, especially squirrel and deer) devour the fruit before I can. My most productive tree by far is Ginger Gold which is ready to pick/eat by August 1st-7th, its a good apple, but if I could, through breeding, end up with the same ripen date but more of a Pink Lady or Jonagold flavor, that would be fantastic. I love the idea of working with red fleshed apples, I didn't really think about them as being highest for health value, but I guess that would make a lot of sense. I don't currently grow anything like that but will look to do so. As for quick fruiting on standard roots, my friend heavily fertilized for rapid growth in the first 2 years, that probably helped, and he pruned for fruiting (I think I actually pruned his trees come to think of it) - central leader with nice spread branches. If you use spreaders they fruit sooner. Zone 6b SE Pennsylvania

[@SkillCult]

I was told to let them grow freely to grow as many buds as possible. I've always been a little skeptical, but I do it anyway since that is the only advice I really have to go on. I've thought about reversing the rind, where you take off a piece of the bark around the whole tree and regraft it on upside down, but haven't tried it yet. I need to do some experimenting, but there is already so much to think about and keep track of. Red fleshed apples are very primitive. That is part of what gives them the high polyphenol content, but it's a bit overkill sometimes. I started with Albert Etter's varieties because he had already partly refined them, but I'm using maypole now too, which has more a primitive crab thing going on with very high pigment and tannins. For desert breeding I think the larger etter dessert apples are better. you can read about them on the greenmantle site, but they make them sound better than they are. Grenadine has the best flavor so far, though it has other issues. If you tasted it you'd want to breed with it. My first red fleshed seedling tasted last year is a grenadine offspring and has the same intense fruit punch flavor.

[@SkillCult]

BTW, I may offer some pollen for sale this year depending on what else is going on.

[@matthewgibby]

Excellent video! I'd heard or read those numbers many times about how many seedling trees one would need to grow to end up with just one edible apple, let alone a good apple. That has always discouraged me from ever attempting it. Maybe down the road I'll try something like a Court Pendu Plat x Wickson just for fun. When I see a "perfect" red apple, I associate that with bad taste and have no desire to try it. I can't believe how long the public has continued to buy those.

[@SkillCult]

+matthewgibby I'm surprised they still buy them at all, but they are still in stores. Court pendu x wickson sounds like a great cross! I have so many cross I want to make this spring. Too many for my scale :/

[@thezestypumpkin3202]

I like honey crisp from the store and Fuji

[@karenchakey]

Hi, I got your link to your channel when I did a Google search on how to grow my own apple trees from seed. I was searching to find organic Non GMO apple trees and found root starts very expensive...but anyways I am looking forward to watching and learning from you.

[@SkillCult]

+Bushcraft Girl Karen Cool, glad to have you. I'll definitely be doing some bushcraft/survival/paleotechnic type stuff too!

[@karenchakey]

I watched several vids of yours today and plan on watching more, are you living off grid too?

[@SkillCult]

+Bushcraft Girl Karen yeah, I guess. i have a pretty big solar system though, so I'm not sure how much that means!

[@karenchakey]

Great, if your not paying an electric bill, gas bill or water bill I call it off grid!

[@therawlifefamily]

One of the things that needs to be taken into consideration is that apple breeders are looking for fairly distinctive NEW varities of apple, in addition to their marketability requirements. They also do multi-generational breeding so that they can cross 3 or more types. I think honeycrisp is one of those examples. So it sounds like you can get edible apples with high certainty just by planting seeds, but what you're not going to get is something distinctive enough to be named.

[@SkillCult]

I'm not sure I'd call honeycrisp distinctive. If I live long enough I'll be doing multigenerational breeding, albeit, probably not very sophisticated. I've already started crossing stuff onto one of my seedlings. As far as whether I'll get anything distinctive enough to be named, we'll see. I wouldn't be so sure since I'm using some very distinctive parents. That's all part of the experiment.

[@TheRavenzAshes]

I have successfully cold stratified, and germinated several seeds from two different kinds of apples. I have about 20 seedlings from each kind. one mother Apple kind was red delicious and the second mother was honey crisp. I have gotten a lot of sneers, and people say I'm only going to grow crab apples...I know I have a few years yet to go, but what to you think they will grow into?

[@SkillCult]

+Jennifer Weaver I'd guess you'll get some pretty edible apples out of some of them at the least. Who knows what the other parents are though. I've just started fruiting mine, but I've heard from a lot of different people now and is sounds like the odds are that you'll get some good stuff. If you do more though, consider doing some crosses between apples that you like so you know what both parents are.

[@Hoyneseple]

Your videos are the most interesting videos I have found on KZbin. I am an amateur in this field, but have planted apple seeds for 3 years now. Some of my trees have red leaves, bark and wood. Is the chance of red flesh apples greater on these? Do you know if there are any negative sides with red leaved trees?

[@SkillCult]

the ones that show red throughout like that are almost certainly red flesh to some degree, but it can vary from deep all the way through red, to pink mottling. But those are usually from somewhat more primitive lines, so most likely they will have some primitive traits that will take more generations to improve. We'll see though, that is an ongoing experiment. Glad to hear you are having fun ;)

[@Hoyneseple]

@@SkillCult Great! Looking forward to them beginning to bear fruit. In any case, the trees are decorative.

[@jimthompson4322]

Great video! Do you know where I can purchase some Wixen Apple Seeds? Just getting into this...

[@SkillCult]

+Jim Thompson I'm out of seeds. I'm making some extra crosses to sell seeds this next winter. I may also have pollen again, hopefully including some wickson if you have anything you'd like to cross it with yourself. People don't really sell apple seeds that I know of.

[@jimthompson4322]

+SkillCult That'd be great, thanks man. Yeah, just starting out, going to see if this can be my next decade's hobby. :D I'm truly starting from the beginning with starting seeds. I have a couple of different varieties of apples from my local grocery store (straight out of the apples). But, you keep mentioning those Wixens, and they sound great. Let me know when you have seeds/pollens and I'd be more than happy to buy some from you!

[@aezram]

Commercial breeding for the "new car on the lot" aesthetic: a great analogy! Maybe it says something that I'd be just as likely to prefer a new vehicle, as I would a supermarket apple. Very excited to follow your progress, and especially to see your first fruits. Did you say that you have 200 seedlings going? How many four year olds right now? Should be some interesting results if you get anything like the Geneva trial's hit rate. And very glad to hear Freddy Menge's name dropped, one of our top local fruit wizards!

[@SkillCult]

Andy Moskowitz I think those marketing ploys do appeal to something in us, but they also lack creativity in that they seem to accept as a given that people will always follow those sort of tendencies and not accept things by other merits. Look at the rise of heirloom tomatoes that are now in grocery stores. They have their own beauty to people who grow and eat them, but they did not get there because of marketing first, they got there because gardeners preferred them and people have become increasingly disappointed in the commercial tomato paradigm which has given us increasingly perfect tough shipping fruits that look good but aren't even okay. They're just edible if you slice them thin and bury them deep in a sandwich or burger. At least apples are showing increases in eating quality for sure, but the marketing machine which spans from the grocery store back to the breeder now, is never likely to meet our desires the way we can if given a wider choice. It's just a matter of interests that are not completely compatible. I have well over 200 trial varieties collected, but I haven't counted in a while and lost some last year to bear attacks. For seedlings, I have over 100 seedlings (maybe around 125?) that are from pollinations I made, all on dwarfing stock in trial rows. I'm thinking about 70 of those are 4 years old, but then I skipped a year right after that. I have records, but I don't recall the numbers for sure. Yes, very exciting! I imagine that the folks at Geneva were a little too optimistic. I've only heard of Cortland out of that lot of apples that they named in that first effort. Still, it is encouraging that they thought they were worth naming. I think it's probably going to be a tough call to decide to name and release things or not. I don't want to get carried away. When it comes to naming stuff, I think the idea should really be to release things that are an improvement on what's out there in some way, or which combine some unique traits not found elsewhere. Are you going to do a few crosses? c'mon Andy, just do it.... prod, prod ;)

[@aezram]

Steven Edholm Ha, I'll get there, for sure. Really just starting to assemble a varietal collection by topworking the few trees we have on site. Not particularly excited by any of the potential crosses of what's flowering right now. Got just under an acre in town, already pretty packed, is another factor, but fortunately my horticultural reach is extended across some community orchard projects I've got going over the last couple years. I am very much aligned with your platform on the pertinence of amateur and small farm breeding efforts. Even on my lil garden scale, I've been trying to intelligently save seed and establish my own lines / landraces / grexes of various annual crops. I sense that the "improvement" concept may be a bit more tenuous than it's made out to be (especially being that you can't add traits one allele at a time via classical breeding), and when it comes to crop diversity: what works for you, works for you, and what works for me, works for me. I'll definitely be down to trial your more promising material at my latitude, once you start figuring that out.

[@SkillCult]

Andy Moskowitz Great point on "improvement". I think there are both subjective and objective aspects, but largely subjective and very climate dependent. By all accounts, suntan is an amazing apple, but not here. Here it is always watercored and fermented into uselessness on the tree by the time it approaches ripeness. I've never had a cox orange pippin that was even really worth bothering to eat (by my somewhat spoiled standards admitedly ;) off my tree, though I've had an amazing one off my moms tree 30 miles away. I was thinking more since making and editing that video about the idea of diversity too. I sometimes fall prey to an objective improvement kind of mindset and the idea that we should keep track and categorize everything, but that doesn't really speak to the poetry of the whole thing, like your kids and neighbors and friends all being excited about some variety that has some kind of personal meaning, sentiment or nostalgia attached to it. Or, just the fun exploratory part. Whatever the case, a lot of that stuff should probably be allowed to happen naturally. It's all good and well I think to name stuff and strive for the objective side of improvement, but I think it's also good to recognize the importance of the inevitable "weeds in the cracks" and the validity of "amateur" results from amateur efforts to the extent that they are serving some purpose or some person... and just that they exist as an upwelling and expression of life in general. I think there is room for both. But, there is a more objective side too though I think. People may vary, but we are still mostly made on the same plan. Many of the apples that have risen to the top in my trials were bred in the last century. Not what I expected starting out with a romanticized heirlooms are better and modern breeding is bound to produce lame results type of mentality.

[@aezram]

Well stated. I do totally respect the work of professional breeders, who are properly equipped and trained to thoroughly evaluate for broad spectrum disease resistance, etc. But still I'd always want to devote some of my orchard space to varieties developed by myself, my friends, and neighbors. I always grow and distribute the Chadwick Cherry tomato, for instance, not just because it's a good tomato, but to honor and build the legacy of Alan Chadwick. "An upwelling and expression of life" is a nice way to put it: the emotional and narrative underpinnings of agricultural practice provide balance and counterpoint to the wholly mechanistic view, which has indeed produced much improvement, but also eroded soils, toxic watersheds, depleted aquifers, poisoned fieldworkers, etc. In other words, I'll be happy to try growing out your doom metal named apples.

[@aleksandramedynskaya6699]

Ok....I dont eat apples....at all....I dont like them. But, thanks to you, I started think I can try to do something with it and try to find best apple in store and try grow something better 😉 thanks for an inspiration!

[@SkillCult]

Well, it's not really just about apples, but about people taking control of and being involved in, their our food supply. You should work with something you can get excited about :) But, maybe you just haven't met the right apples yet....

[@TravisHoeffel]

Have you heard of malus sieversii from kahkastan. That would be an interesting one to use for breeding. I got a few scions and some seeds from the usda. Any clue if diseases like scab can transfer by grafting. I grafted some scab resistant varieties like williams pride, prima and priscilla onto my scab susceptible pink lady tree. I had scab on the tree in previous years but used some sulfur for it, which helped but it still has some scab. If I take scion wood from the wills pride, prima, priscilla grafts in future years will it be infected making it a bad idea to use as grafting material? If scab isn't like this are their any diseases that are?

[@SkillCult]

***** Yeah, I've heard of that collection, but I haven't grafted any of them out yet. Scab resistance can definitely be bred in. It's a genetic resistance, so it shouldn't be transmissible in either direction. You can spread virus by multi-grafting trees. My frankentree is infected with apple mosaic virus. It doesn't keep me from multi-grafting other trees, but I don't send the scions from the infected tree out to other people unless it's something that they can't get anywhere else and are informed. Williams' Pride seems like a really great early apple. I've only fruited it for two years, but it seems promising. I actually made a couple crosses with it this year, just on intuition I guess. I know very little about breeding for disease resistance. My general impression is that it takes time, a lot of the groundwork has already been laid by large breeding programs. It is definitely a good thing to pursue I think. Anything that will reduce the amount of poison sprayed. I know someone that used to use a lot of copper spray because it was organic approved, and one of their sheep died of copper toxicity from grazing under the trees. I may look breeding for diseases resistance more in the future, but I just haven't gone there. Partly because disease pressure on my airy site, and the generally dryish climate isn't conducive to many of the common diseases, so I can afford to ignore it. So far anyway. I started with virgin land, so as the apples are here longer, I would think that diseases pressure may still build. Any luck with the interstem grafting yet?

[@SkillCult]

***** do a quick google search on >scab resistance apple breeding< There is stuff out there, like this from PRI www.hort.purdue.edu/newcrop/pri/breeding.html Abstract The breeding of apples resistant to scab incited by Venturia inaequalis (Cke.) Wint. is a genetically-based strategy for the control of this major fungal fruit pathogen. A concerted breeding effort began with three cooperating Agricultural Experiment Stations in the late 1940s and early 1950s. Soon afterwards collaboration was extended to research workers in Canada and Europe, and later to other continents. The effort that continues today in at least 17 breeding programs throughout the world was based on a modified backcross program to combine genes for resistance to apple scab from Malus floribunda 821, and other species with commercially-accepted traits. Since 1970, 48 scab-resistant cultivars have been released worldwide of which 37 purportedly carry the Vf gene from M. floribunda 821, one of which ('Freedom') carries additional polygenic resistance from 'Antonovka,' one (Imrus) with Vf from M. atrosanguinea 804: five with other genes [one ('Rouville') with the Vm gene from M. atrosanguinea 804; one ('Nova Easygro') with the Vr gene from a Russian apple seedling from the Caucasas Mountains (R#12740-7A); one ('Murry) with Vm and/or Vf, from M. micromalus, and three ('Romus 2', Gavin' and 'Generos') with polygenic resistance only. There now exists a wide range of genotypes containing the Vf gene ranging in maturity from 75 days to 180 days or longer after flowering with large fruits, crisp flesh, good storage behavior, an a wide range in flavor and skin color. A number of selections have been identified that contain varying degrees of resistance to other diseases and pests. And from the same article 'Dayton, 'Williams' Pride,' and 'McShay' are too new to have established a reputation for adaptation or acceptance. 'Williams' Pride' was named in honor of E. B. Williams, long-time leader of the breeding program at Purdue. It offers potential as an early summer, mildly acid, full flavored dessert apple, maturing just before 'Redfree,' that will store for up to 6 weeks. It has excellent fall quality for a summer apple but has Town excessive water core and bitter pit in some years.

[@johnlord8337]

Any options to get apple DNA species and find out the whos and whats makes a good vs blah apple, and what DNA is the same and what is different, and breeding out the blah and highlight the good.

[@SkillCult]

Im sure there is a lot of work on that now, but what apples are they going to map? Not russets probably. They are using DNA testing now to vet new seedlings. They can test a small tissue sample for certain genes or traits I guess and save a lot of growing out supposedly. With that and manipulations to get them fruiting really quickly, the whole process will be much, much shorter. It's pretty exciting, but then again, how will it be used. How would we make use of that kind of technology to raise people? Maybe it's just as well for some of us to stick to the old fashion sweaty, grunting and somewhat random method of reproduction ;)

[@johnlord8337]

With modern DNA (and RNA) cut and snip technologies, and having a modestly large database of DNA, for each type of apples (baking, eating, juice, soft, hard, sour, ... early, middle, late) you then have such RNA noting the russet phenomena (and what blessings come from that immunity RNA), or Gala, Pink Lady sweetness, ... etc. and you can then have an understanding of what makes a red, yellow, black apple, texture, etc. Then cut and snip (or knowing which species you want) then pollenate and scion, and check the scion for the desired RNA. Procaryote virus (like plants) only have single or double strand RNA. Animals and humans have double strand RNA and DNA). So RNA is less complex than DNA, and smaller than the smallest DNA/RNA of animals and humans. Being able to RNA all apples species, good, bad, ugly, or blah, and you have the database of knowing the story line of apples and making new and delicious (and shipping hardy) varieties. You can see the RNA color segment, crunchy texture segment, etc of like species ... and read the BIble of Apples.

[@SkillCult]

It could be cool to read a variety like that and see why it is what it is and what is lurking unexpressed. At this point it's probably too expensive, but give it 25 years and who knows. I'm sure the database is building though.

[@kalebames1532]

This is off the topic of this video but how would you populate pear tree from using bullet pears as the rootstock? We have bullet pears(they are 1''- 1 1/2'' pears that taste nasty but cattle like them.) grow wild around here so i was thinking saving their seed and grafting a good tasting variety onto.

[@SkillCult]

I would use a different rootstock. If you are going to grow seed, just use regular pear seeds, or look into pear rootstocks. If they are just growing everywhere though, consider grafting onto the ones that are already growing. My friend Eliza Greenman does that with her invasive pear species in Virginia. Look up her blog. You might be talking about the same pear. She has ideas on how to deal with it.

[@kalebames1532]

@@SkillCult I looked up one of her article's "In Defense of Bradford Pear" which the pears sound basically the same except a few minor differences that can just amount to as variants. The (smaller)ones around my area (that I know of) are not a number to call invasive(

[@MrTimjwilson]

Good for you. More people need to grow from seed to have pathogen resistant genera.

[@rvk671]

Hi steven what manure you use for apple plant growth, I am going to try bone meal this time ,will that be a good option?

[@SkillCult]

Whatever is around. Manures, wood ash, compost. I might be more specific this year, but usually the kind of stuff I'd put on the garden.

[@rvk671]

SkillCult More of woodash is harmful , Anyways hv u tried bonemeal wts ur views on ths

[@SkillCult]

Never seen ashes harm anything, but it's about context. My soil is very acid. I haven't used bone meal at all. I'm sure it would be great.

[@rvk671]

SkillCult Ohk ..for acidic soil do lime applications

[@SkillCult]

wood ashes contain a lot of lime, plus potassium and lot of trace minerals. They are really good in the soil here as far as I can tell.

[@ProfKSE]

Agreed. Unfortunately we now have a whole generation of people who probably don't eat apples because they have had Red Delicious as a kid.

[@SkillCult]

I think they are coming back around, but I know what you mean. They are obsessed with texture, that's for sure.

[@lacklusterami]

What zone are you in, sir?

[@SkillCult]

Zone 9

[@faxmebeer33]

That's a nice shirt, where can I get one?

[@SkillCult]

Just something I got at the thrift store./

[@DagothChad]

In his dresser if you are brave!

[@johnlord8337]

10*

[@DavidLGreen-yw1wg]

I like what you are doing. But you are ignoring one important thing. The average person who asks about growing apples from seeds has gotten an apple from a supermarket that they like. But the chances are very high that this is not a cross between apple varieties, but a cross between an apple variety and a crab apple. Crab apples are in pretty general use as pollenizers in commercial orchards.

[@SkillCult]

I thought they were less used now, but maybe not. I realize that can be an issue and I strongly encourage controlling both parents if possible. Still, I've heard from quite a few people that have grown out store seeds and gotten good apples. Also, throwing in some primitive genes may not always be a bad thing. Probably better to get apples from farmers markets and small operations that may have more variety of trees and not monocrop stuff with a single pollinator species. I've used several crabs in breeding, but they are select varieties. The more primitive one I've used is maypole, which I believe is sometimes used as a pollinator. It will be interesting to see how the seedlings turn out.

[@spookypumpkiiin2491]

I never knew, PLANTS can mate too XD