When you grow from seed, you don't know what the fruit will be like. 99 times out of 100, it will be markedly inferior to grafted fruit. I won't even bother to grow fruit if I was limited to seed grown. The store bought, as bad as it is, would likely be better. So this is the main issue. Maybe your neighbor will have some good edible fruit. But chances are yours will be better.

The Fruitnut

In addition to fruit quality being a known entity, your grafted trees will also be likely to begin fruting in half the time - or less - that your neighbor's seedlings will require to grow through their juvenile period and reach fruiting maturity.

You could always use your seed grown fruit trees as rootstock and graft known varieties onto them.

If you do a lot of research, you'll figure out what to grow from seed and what not to.

You are gardening in paradise. Very lucky!

I once listened to a little talk by the breeder who developed the "Bacon" avocado. He said that he had planted 1000 seedlings of Fuerte avocado without getting one which was as good as the parent. But where avocados have been selected from seed over time (as in the Phillipines), the chances of getting good fruit from seed are reported much higher. Fuerte is a Mexican/Guatemalan hybrid, and the F2 generation was inferior.

As noted in a post above, there are some fruits from which you have little chance of getting good fruit from seedlings and others where the chances are pretty good. There are reportedly some papaya varieties which come true from seed (when the variety is grown away from other papayas), and one or two peach varieties which come true from seed. But for most fruits, you are taking a real chance when you grow from seed.

And even though many citrus do grow true from seed (grapefruit, lemons, oranges, etc), the juvenile period (before it is able to bloom) can be as long as 10-15 years! And you'd probably get a very thorny, tall tree, depending on the variety. Really not worth the wait in my view. But there may be some trees/shrubs that bloom earlier and true from seed-- maybe guava for example, or possibly pomagranite? But please don't quote me; I'm no expert!

OK, I'm going to disagree somewhat with the above posters. I've been experimenting with some of my own home-grown from seed fruit trees. I've got about a dozen third generation peach trees coming into full production now, the fruit size, ripening date, etc. vary quite a bit, but they're all good. I also have some seed-grown apricots just coming to bearing age, a seed-grown apple which seems very similar to Jonathan (which is possible, since I have one of those in my orchard), and a couple of little tiny, one year old Asian Pear seedlings.

The thing about doing this is you might just end up with a great tree or two. Some might not be as good as grafted, but others might. IF you have the room and just like to experiment, I say go for it.

One other thing -- the less breeding and domestication in a crop, the better candidate it is for propagation from seed in terms of it being likely to be pretty good quality.

Oh so you're in Hawaii and have land to grow all those wonderful tropical fruits? Thank you for making me feel like my life sucks :-p

As for what you're saying. It depends on the kind of tree. The don't-use-seedlings rule is from our TEMPERATE world, so don't assume it applies with all the tropical trees. And even with temperate trees, apparently peaches and apricots are likely to taste good from seedlings. Like, I could definitely see lychees having a good probability of tasting good from seed. And I'm pretty sure papaya doesn't even really change in taste that much from seedling to seedling. Do they even graft papaya? That would seem to be a weird tree to graft. It's more like a really tall vegetable plant than a tree - it doesn't have any real hardwood for a while.

Anyway, I would stick with grafting just for the earlier harvest. Are the trees you're buying really that expensive? I bought some relatively large trees last year, and it was $85 INCLUDING shipping. That really is NOT a lot. The dollar has been getting weaker and weaker, remember, plus fruit is kinda expensive. If you don't want to spend the money, then why not graft onto seedlings yourself? They say any fool can graft. And surely in hawaii there must be a good number of people who could give/sell you scions.

Anyway, don't just stick with the usual tropicals. Grow DURIAN! Truly an exquisite gourmet treat. I love 'em and I've only had the ones shipped frozen to New York City! Also there's mangosteen. And apparently there's a bajillion other tropical fruits you could grow. Jackfruit is delicious, and the sugar-apple trees are usually tasty - I find the tastiest is atemoya. There's sapodilla, and passionfruit. There's miracle bush, which takes away your ability to taste sour. and apparently there's a fruit that tastes like peanut butter.

Oh man.... If I had land in Hawaii to grow fruits, I'd be having a ball!

denninmi,
Stonefruits are pretty reliable, so far as seedlings producing good fruits go. With many of the 'landrace' types - your 3rd generation seedling peaches might be considered in this class - 75% or more of seedling offspring produce fruits that are virtually indistinguishable from those of the 'parent' tree.
Apples & pears - much less predictable. Tropical fruits other than citrus - I have no clue.

peanuttree,

Your unqualified recommendation of durian renders all of your other advice suspect.

That's only slightly made up for by the recommendation of mangosteen.

What? OK so I forgot to mention the smell. When you like the fruit like I do it smells good. You just get used to it. Like a fine, stinky cheese.

anyway, so yeah, the durian is known for its very strong smell, but it's still what I'd call the best fruit in the world (when you combine taste and mystique - I mean what on earth is more crazy and exotic than the durian - every detail about it is weirder and weirder, from its painfully spiky shape and hard, woody rind which eventually splits easily with ripening, to its telling you its ready by falling off the tree, which also makes it dangerous, to its pollination by GIANT BATS)

And really, the taste is good. It's like a gourmet challenge - you have to get used to it, to try to get the flavor that everyone in Southeast Asia raves about - you have to try to understand the flavor. If you do, you'll love it.

And that flavor is a mixture of rotten flesh, noxious chemicals, peaches and onions.

I would say the flavor is like a really deep, rich eggy flavor, with an overly-strong-fruit-smell - it's like fruit on steroids

hints of vanilla and burnt sugar come through

All of you have posted useful info.I would like to add little info. I have read that the grafting and air layering produce plants having exact duplication of the parent plant.So if you like the taste of the fruit or the fragrance of the flower and you want exact duplication then go for grafting and air layering.

Peanut tree,
Durian is the King of fruits! Dont listen to murky! :) Do you have large seed or small seed Durian. the commercial ones in Thailand are small seed because there is more flesh, but the tastiest and creamiest are the big seed durian!

How would you describe the taste gemexplorer?