If you plant an apple seed any type of apple could grow…

[Hatetagsinclothes]

Just gone down the wormhole of apples whilst trying to read about Granny Smith.

So an apple seed does not grow the same variety of the one it came from.

It is a genetic lottery and you could get any type of apple. A new amazing variety or a hard sour apple.

So how do they keep making Granny Smiths? Well it’s a clone of the first ever Granny Smith tree. They use clippings and attach that to another tree. So there is no actual Granny Smith tree!

It’s really fascinating when you search how all these apples were discovered.

For example how Pink Lady got trademarked and How you have to be part of a club to grow the Jazz Apple.

It doesn’t matter what pollinated the fruit on the tree if you are eating the fruit. How the fruit tastes is not affected by the pollination. The taste of the fruit is only determined by the “ mother” tree. However if you were to take the seeds from that fruit, grow them, wait for the resulting tree to produce fruit, that new fruit on the new tree would be completely different (and almost certainly bitter and unpleasant).

Yes nearly all fruit trees are grafted to get the type you want and the size you want, the rootstock determines the size. I assume what you might get if you planted a seed would depend what it got cross pollinated with and any mutations. To keep it true to type you have to graft. Cuttings should go true to apple type, but might be a huge tree when fully grown or not grow well at all.

@GooseCreekandtheRiver thanks.

This is so interesting. How can you find out what variety of apple tree a particular tree in a garden is? Do you have to wait for the apples to grow and AI scan them or something?

I grew up in a house which had an orchard with five different apple trees in. There was a very old Bramley which was nearly as tall as the house. The smell of apples is still home to me.

My friend has an apple tree in her kitchen garden with over 40 varieties of apples growing on it. She carried on grafting new varieties onto existing branches over the years.

You study the flowers and the fruit, when the tree flowers, when the fruit sets, when it is finally ripe, what size the fruit is, what it looks like, add in the taste and how well it stores. Then you look it up in a book or ask the RHS, why would you need to use AI slop.

Wait for it to fruit, then take a sample of fruit to an expert (RHS gardens or large garden centres putting on an 'apple day' often have one). They will identify it by size, colour, skin patterning, smell, taste, texture, and the way the seeds are arranged inside it. Edit: Taking some leaves and a photo of the tree and flowers also helps.

I had to look it up to check. The original Bramley Seedling was a tree grown from pips by a Mary Ann Brailsford in the early 1800's, years later the fruit was spotted by a local nurseryman who took grafts to produce our finest cooking apple. So plant your pips and one day you might be famous.

Does anyone remember what pink lady apples used to be like? Small, sharper and sweet and sometimes pink flesh? They’re all so big and disappointing these days. I find it crazy that we have the potential to have so many good apples in this country and we just get the same old royal gala and Braeburn shit.

I remember learning about the grafting and thinking my friend must have got it wrong

I do. One of the trees has got really sweet apples this year. The other sharper but still lovely. They aren't full size but I read you are supposed to thin out a lot when you've got the flowers so that fewer apples grow so I'm going to try that next year and hopefully they'll be big apples. They taste just like normal shop bought apples.
This photo is shit.

Yes.

Most commercial apples are grown because they ripen at the same time. If you paid for someone to go round each tree trying each individual apple to see if it is ripe before harvesting, each apple would cost far too much to buy.

Pomology

A course at Australian Universities I believe.

Experts are often keen to work out what varieties unknown apples are, because they want to identify heritage varieties before they die out.

(Must remember to check my pear crop tomorrow, which is one single fruit, because the rest succumbed to pear midge.)

I absolutely love that this thread has generated so much interest.

😂😂😂

@BinturongsSmellOfPopcorn

Wait for it to fruit, then take a sample of fruit to an expert (RHS gardens or large garden centres putting on an 'apple day' often have one)

I am very excited by the concept of an Apple Day! I did not know such a thing existed.

A relative has an apple tree in their garden that is probably 70 years old maybe older. I'm now wondering whether it would be of interest to an expert given what has been said about heritage varieties dying out. I'm going to see about the apple day experts and see if this tree's apples can be identified.

This whole thread has been fascinating @Hatetagsinclothes thank you for starting it.

I've just been looking into Apple Days and discovered national apple day is on 21st October so just missed it unfortunately.

https://www.commonground.org.uk/apple-day/

These people say "The older your trees are the more likely they are to be something special." I'm now very interested in this old apple tree. I think the person who owns it just thinks its a bog standard apple tree but now I know there there is no such thing as a bog standard apple tree. I know it's not a real word but it suits how I feel - I am revalated!!

https://applesandorchards.org.uk/whats-on/apple-days/

Studied horticulture, so literally part of what I know for my job, including the actual technical how to although I've never practically done it

The more I read, the more I'm very mystified about how this apple thing isn't well known.

I knew about Cavendish bananas because it is featured in the media from time to time but the apple grafting and seed issue and the importance of heritage variety preservation seems like well kept secret.

I'm so glad I read this thread.

I nurtured two seedlings from under my crab apple and have planted them in the garden. I knew about the root stock thing and was slightly concerned I was going to have trees bigger than my house. I'm now intrigued to see what the apples will be like, thanks to this thread 😍

In other apples news I've been emptying a huge tub that had beans growing in it. There were splits in the side, little doorways if you will, and quite near the bottom of the wet earth were nine tiny apples. I thought it a strange place for a mouse(?) to put them

when I was working at a Tesco in Milton Keynes. I walked into the warehouse at the start of my shift, and immediately said "I can smell Macintosh apples".

Oh @HurdyGurdy19 that could have brought tears to my eyes if I was in a more lacrimose frame of mind 🤗

I read you are supposed to thin out a lot when you've got the flowers so that fewer apples grow so I'm going to try that next year and hopefully they'll be big apples.

@Error404FucksNotFound wait until about June when the apples are set. You'll see the little ones that aren't going to do much, they're a different shape to the good apples, they come away very easily when you try to take them off. You might see some that have fallen round the tree already, it's the tree's way of getting rid of fruits that won't be any good and is called the June drop. They don't all drop themselves so we give them a helping hand to get the apples we want.

I had no idea about this. Please would more farmers graft the old varieties that taste like apples not crunchy lemonade?

This is true for more types of plant based food, isn't it?

I remember that the pumpkin family is similar - if you stuck the seeds in the ground, you won't get the same variant. And afaik some crops are similar.
One reason is, it is easier to create a variant which has the selected features relevant for consumption, than forcing them accross the full plant including the seeds.
Additionally, it allows monetizing the variant. Otherwise others would buy it once and grow their own from the seeds.