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Any Fruit tree growers in here

is so, please check in as I have a few questions

can I just take the core from a peach or apple and use that to grow a tree? I was told from a guy at the nursery that odds are very good that it will not bear fruit

where can I get a list of orchards or nurseries to buy 3-5 year old fruit trees? I found some dealers on a google search but I cannot find any local to me....I know they are out there...I am in Ohio.

I have more questions but that is a good start

thanks for stopping in
 
is so, please check in as I have a few questions

can I just take the core from a peach or apple and use that to grow a tree? I was told from a guy at the nursery that odds are very good that it will not bear fruit

The guy from the nursery was right. Most fruit trees are one variety grafted onto a different set of roots. I can't remember why, but since it's a lot of extra work there must be a good reason for it. There are probably hybrid issues too.

Where can you get young stock ? You can start at local garden centers , WalMart , Home Depot and on and on in the spring. I'm not a big fan of the mail order nurseries like Gurneys.
If you're thinking big time, get hold of a nurserymans mag or catalog and see who is selling in volume and for how much. But since you're not an experienced orchardist you're probably taking an awfully big gamble jumping directly into the deep end ?
 

WeedChuck

Member
He lied. a seed tree will produce fruit. It may not be as vigerous a grower and may be more suseptable to enviromental factors. but not always the case . my peach tree that grew form seed is my best producer.
 

WeedChuck

Member
is so, please check in as I have a few questions

can I just take the core from a peach or apple and use that to grow a tree? I was told from a guy at the nursery that odds are very good that it will not bear fruit

The guy from the nursery was right. Most fruit trees are one variety grafted onto a different set of roots. I can't remember why, but since it's a lot of extra work there must be a good reason for it. There are probably hybrid issues too.

?


The reasoning behind the grafting to a diffrent root stock is to provide the upper fruiting half with a rooting systen that is more hardy and adaptable to areas where a non grafted wouldent have a chance. Like most nursery bought , grafted, roses and fruit trees anything growing from below the graft commonly known as "suckers" will in fact never fruit, or bloom. thats why they are always suggested ot be pruned. If you had such growth from a seed tree those sucker shoot would indeed mature to bear friut. because its a "whole" tree as to say.


Can you just take a clone off new tree growth on a good producer?

as far as cloneing trees goes , cant help you there, as i am just a simple farmer, lol :tree:
 
He lied. a seed tree will produce fruit. ]
You got lucky.
A blind robin can find a worm, and a seed can produce a fruit tree. I can also win the lottery, Johnny Appleseed notwithstanding. Good that your peach is a high producer, but there has to be a reason producers go to the extremes that they do. I guess the right advice to give the questioner is that there exists a possibility a seed can produce a good tree. See also my lottery crack.
 

VerdantGreen

Genetics Facilitator
Boutique Breeder
Mentor
ICMag Donor
Veteran
yep, a tree from a stone or pip may take years to fruit and may be crap.

'cloning' a tree is called budding or grafting - where you take a bud from the wanted tree and graft it to a rootstock. the type of rootstock used will also determine the size of the resulting tree and how long it takes to fruit. the more dwarfing (smaller) the rootstock, the quicker it will fruit.

google fruit tree grafting. its a fairly simple process if you are handy with a knife. and have the rootstock which can be purchased ready for grafting.

roses are propagated in the same way as are many other trees/shubs that dont come tru from seed

V.
 
thanks guys.....cant seem to find a consensus on this topic....soem say yes, some say maybe, some say blind nut=squirrel....who knows?

I am going to try with some, just to see how it pans out.
 

WeedChuck

Member
He lied. a seed tree will produce fruit. ]
You got lucky.
A blind robin can find a worm, and a seed can produce a fruit tree. I can also win the lottery, Johnny Appleseed notwithstanding. Good that your peach is a high producer, but there has to be a reason producers go to the extremes that they do. I guess the right advice to give the questioner is that there exists a possibility a seed can produce a good tree. See also my lottery crack.

I tried to explain why they graft different root stock, to you, but i guess you missed it. And if I got lucky, ive gotten lucky more times than ive won the lottery.
 

dubwise

in the thick of it
Veteran
I've got 5 apple trees...we planted them 7 years ago and they were two years old when purchased. We picked them up from a local nursery and for the past two years they have produced the best tasting apples you've ever tasted. Mine get fed my once every 10 days with my resevoir from my indoor garden. We also started some pear trees this year and next year we will start peaches. If you can, run side by side with your seed compared to something you picked up from the nursery and see what you get. Good luck with your trees.
 

VerdantGreen

Genetics Facilitator
Boutique Breeder
Mentor
ICMag Donor
Veteran
thanks guys.....cant seem to find a consensus on this topic....soem say yes, some say maybe, some say blind nut=squirrel....who knows?

I am going to try with some, just to see how it pans out.

who knows - thats the point. planting a stone/pip may give you a very long wait for some sh1te fruit, with a chance you may be lucky.

using grafted stock will give you a shorter weight for some good fruit providing you can look after them properly. not rocket science :)

good luck

V,
 

grapeman

Active member
Veteran
fruit trees are like vines (which I know about). You need to graft the fruiting wood onto a rootstock that is good for your area/soil. You must use a portion of the fruiting wood from the plant you want to replicate. Seeds or pits will never get you anything.

Don't know how to graft?

Google it. It's easy. When we want to change grape/peach/nectarine (etc) varieties, we cut the tree and "graft" the new variety onto the old rootstock. This is the fastest way to change varieties. Works well unless you have a shitty rootstock. This way, you have an established rootstock feeding a small shoot and it grows very fast. sometimes you need to leave some growing points from the old variety so the roots don't over power the new graft. Then the following year remove all traces of the old variety via a pruning saw.
 

zappa66

Member
Wow this is a very is a very interesting thread, up in Vermont apples is about all I can do. I just got a cute dwarf lemon for my "sun room" but I'd love to be able to grow the real deal outside...
 

QuantumDist

New member
What came first, a fruiting tree or a fruiting graft?
Of course you can plant a tree from a seed and that will produce fruit.
 
I have a Lemon tree, Lime tree and Banana non fruiting sucker tree.

The lemon's take forever to finish with a small rootstock and the lime's only come once a year. Banana is err 4 - 6 yrs old ... but I live in a cold climate so every year I bring them in for hibernation.

This year I'm doing vines, going to use a Rubber maid container, use 4 sticks on the corner and put chicken wire around it about 3 feet off the soil level so I can weave the vine around so its easy to pick off fruit. Blackberry, blueberry, rasberry and a grape! Plus I'll be able to bring them in during the winter pretty easily and put them under some CFL's or PLL's
 

Koi

Member
The point of buying grafted trees are that it will be a truebreed. You will know what kind of fruit you will get. You will know the colour, shape and taste of the fruit in advance.

Sow a seed from a fruit and it could become an excellent fruit tree with juicy tasty fruits or it could become a tree with hardly eatable fruits.
 

VerdantGreen

Genetics Facilitator
Boutique Breeder
Mentor
ICMag Donor
Veteran
What came first, a fruiting tree or a fruiting graft?
Of course you can plant a tree from a seed and that will produce fruit.

that is not in question, read the thread, the point is that fruit from a seed may take a long time to come and end up being crap - whereas a tree from a graft is much more of a known quantity.

V.
 

molly

Member
IMO do not waste your time with apple seeds. There is too much heterogeneity for a good variety. Like others said, the rootstock from another variety is used due to its robustness, or adaptation to your climate, while the scion is relative to a particular variety; green, red, fuji, etc. The ability to graft a scion onto a rootstock has been well developed in agriculture. Many prunes, walnuts, citrus, roses, etc. use this methodology.

The nursery man might have been right about the seeds not bearing fruit, or even if they are viable. Certain varieties of apples have unequal amounts of chromosome within the same species. They are able to dihybridize, but afterwords are not allowed to meiotically divide due to an their karyotype. Think of a horse + donkey = mule. Mule is 'sterile'

Call your local nursery and ask when they will get their 'bareroot' stock in. In California it is around Jan/Feb. Here they cost $20 each and will bear fruit within a season or two, but it is not advisable to allow them to fruit. It is better to shape your tree for the first 4-5 years. Hope this helps.
 
H

highsteppa

Some root stock like Antonovaka (standard size very hardy from russia) will produce fruit but generally the rootstck is used to makle smi dwarf and dwarf trees, have disease resistance or be adaptable to sandy or clay soils, etc. Just like elites, all the good apple clones (scions, what you graft onto the rootstck) came from a seed. Some are chance, other intentionally bred. Also grafted trees bear fruit faster, just like a MJ clone which is already an "adult", so are the scions you graft with.

Zappa I think you could grow alot more than apples, I think there are some plums, pears and maybe sour cherries that do fine up north as I grow dsome and temps go to -30 F at times
 

Merman

Active member
If you've got Tivo or get lucky check out 'Botany of Desire' on PBS:

http://www.pbs.org/thebotanyofdesire/

This is a 3-hour documentary that goes over man's interaction with fruiting/flowering plants and how both we (homosapiens) and plants have adapted to each other.

It covers apples (including all the questions above about seed vs. grafting), potatoes, tulips, AND marijuana! Very cool and stony show... I think its on a couple of more times... It was good enough to buy the DVD I think.
 

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