My children, in having saved a number of apple seeds from apples such as Honeycrisp to Braeburn, I planted them in the fridge according to sprouting instructions, and in using a plastic restaurant food container, at the point of 3 1/2 weeks, I noted this.
In slicing the apples, I nicked some of the seeds a bit much and white was exposed, but it appears these seeds have popped out the white and seem to have little roots on them.
For those who did not pay attention to the planting instructions, it was seeds placed on a wet paper towel. Mine were the heavy brown things which a cafe had in their dispenser. You seal these in a container, which I used a throw away plastic food container, and place it in the cool of the fridge. Obviously frozen is a problem as too cold he seed sit there for weeks being dormant.
But I seem in this, to have little white looking spot on the pointed end and some even on the round top end. I have no experience in what apple seeds prefer to germinate as and can only report what I see.
I have something like 40 seeds in this container, so this is going to be something to deal with if all birth. The Braeburn are not really cold root hardy for northern areas and the Honeycrisp is something out of Minnesota. I have no idea what sprouted, but apparently some trees have horrid fruit or no fruit at all, so a good margin with trees killed in winter or eaten by deer, grasshoppers or rabbits, seems prudent.
I can see if this worked how Johnny Appleseed made such a difference in planting. When I was a child, there was this apple tree growing in the edge of the road. As things modernized in people suing others, the county cut it down, but this was an example of what can happen.
I assume this was a Red Delicious, as that is about all that ever grew in the world out of Iowa, and someone ate the apple and threw the core out, hence an apple tree came to be.
I picked the fruit once in the late fall and it was hard and sour. I suppose one could have made pies out of it or jelly, but I do not think any frost would sweeten that apple or a longer season. That is what apples are, but birds and deer, as much as chickens and pigs will eat things humans pucker over.
Point is Gurneys once sent me a tree which was beautiful, but it was not the tree I ordered as it was absolutely sour to make tears come to your eyes.
God has done better in planting trees for me off of another Minnesota variety of crab called Chestnut. That is a nice little fruit and tree and a MacIntosh. Both of God's doings are better and I appreciate them immensely, and it is with hope that I have something appear in these seeds.
The point in the Red Delicious story was they are a zone 5 apple, and this offspring by seed was doing just fine in zone 4. So I hope that the Braeburns do amply well. Braeburns seemed nicer apples years ago, like Granny Smith in huge apples from Oz imports. What is around now is just disappointing.
Maybe it is like Red Delicious, whose apples are all horrid in the stores, as they taste nothing like that in reality. We used to at Church at Christmas be given a huge Red Delicious apple and those were the only ones I ever had which were any good. It is like peaches in you can never get a good one out of the store, but require growing or a fancy fruit shipment.
In a bit, I will have to try and start these apple seeds in some plastic cups to see how they take to that, and then I will report on that. I am wondering if it would be smart to obtain like some nursery plastic eight inch pots to plant them and the pot directly into the ground. I suppose the tap root would poke through, but it would be easier to transplant them to a permanent location in less stress. At least that is what the Inspiration is pointing me to.
Could mulch them for winter and see how that goes so the voles and rabbits do not eat them off.
Cart before the horse, but you have to have a plan worked out before you get the cart too or there is no use in having a cart.
nuff said on the wee baby fruity apple update.
As it has been a week since I wrote the above, the additional update had me putting the two most leafy sproutlings into a clear plastic cup with plastic top in damp soil. The leaves were white, but started turning green. No growth yet, but I hope I have not killed them.
Apple seed hulls are very hard I have found out, but do have a half dozen sprouted now. I will try a dose of peroxide perhaps if no more put down roots.
*what may be Filipino orange lime seeds, I have two doing quite well on the porch in morning sun and afternoon shade.
It is possible if you care to invest 5 to 7 years to get free apple trees of a new variety in high numbers from just saving seeds. I have an alert here too in I saved a couple which were nicked by the knife and could see white in them, and they were the ones which germinated first.
Some more million dollar knowledge.
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