Any tree experts?

[DonnerSurvivor]

I have 5 beautiful apple trees that came with the woods when we bought it, These trees produce small bitter tasting apples that the deer and other local wildlife love. I would really like to plant more apple trees but they are pretty expensive to buy started trees and I keep hearing that if I plant seeds from my apple trees that there is a good chance the trees will not produce any apples. Is that true? I am not looking to get edible apples just trees that produce for the wildlife but I do not want to go through all the work of planting seeds getting the trees to grow then moving the trees to the woods and building a fence around them until they mature just to find out in 20 years they will not produce apples. I am hearing to many conflicting reports on the internet to know what will really happen. Thanks to anyone with information!

 

[Cottie]

Starting trees from seed is hit or miss. I've never heard of not getting apples, just not getting apples that are true to type. It's a very difficult process that doesn't always (very rarely, actually) result in a tree.

Can you take cuttings of the existing ones and root those? Also a lot of work, but will result in true to type trees.

 

[Secuono]

Lowes trees are only $20.
If you grow from seeds, you will get a natural tree, not the tree you see which more than likely, was grafted on a certain rootstock. The rootstock determines how tall, wide and when it matures.
All trees will eventually have fruit, but the bigger trees can take 5 or more years to reach maturity. All those seeds or whips you root won't have any apples easily until 4+ years from now.
CL and nurseries/online, sell wildlife trees and sometimes you can find cheap fruit trees that wont take a decade and wont grow 14-20ft tall.

http://www.orangepippin.com/resources/g ... rootstocks

 

[DonnerSurvivor]

Thank you both! Root stock was far cheaper than I thought it would be so I guess I will probably try and order some and graft from the actual fruit trees in my yard as well as the crab apples already in the woods. I am wondering though can I plant these crab apple seeds and use them as root stock or is that just going to be more trouble than its worth? I was hoping to plant about 100 trees so paying 20$ each would get alil pricey. I am also still pretty young and am hoping to see this land be passed down many generations so I dont mind waiting to get fruit but if I can get fruit in a couple years rather than 10+ that would be good.

 

[Secuono]

Root stock needs to be the same width as the whip you are grafting on, that will probably take 2yrs before it's wide enough for you to start grafting and hope it heals fine. Those growing seeds as root stock will have to be in a safe place, first few winters they may need to be indoors unless you live real down south.

Only tree I can root from whips is willows, I've been thinking of buying rooting hormone and trying again. If you don't want to deal with seedlings and all the work that's involved with that, then I'd invest in a can of the hormone, cut some half inch, long branches and try to root those. The bigger the branches, the less protection they will need from wildlife, but they all may need protection. Deer, mice and other animals will eat young trees in winter.

 

[DonnerSurvivor]

Thank you much! I plan on starting my trees in pots and moving them to the woods once they get some size to them. I will also put a 4' perimeter of fencing around each tree once they are in the woods as well as a chew guard to prevent rodent damage. I planted some nut bushes in the woods with 2.5' to 3' of wire around each one and the stupid deer just leaned on the wire until they could reach the bush then totally destroyed them. Out of 100 nut bushes I think 10 may have survived. Our winters are very cold (Minnesota) so I will probably have to bring all my young potted trees inside for most of the winter. I am assuming I should wait until next spring before trying to buy root stock and grafting branches to it correct?