Looks like weeds.. sometimes they sprout the next year...or the year after.

It might be an interesting experiment to germinate your own tree seeds, but don't expect much...they won't come true and it will take many years to bear fruit.

Good for you! Apple and pear seeds sprout best if you nick the seed coat before planting (and if you start them indoors in February). The problem with starting fruit trees from fruit is that you don't know what type of hybrid you might end up with and that it's highly unlikely that what you get will be hardy in our area. Most of our hardy cultivars are grafted onto rootstocks that produce nasty fruit of their own. But whom am I to talk? I didn't start any trees from seed this year, but I have a northern catalpa that resprouts from its roots every year, and I planted that seed four years ago.

Apple seeds and probably others require 90 or so days of cold to sprout. It's called cold stratification. One of the wonderful things about planting seeds is that they are different from their parents. Another problem could be trees raised on their own root might not be hardy enough to survive. If you have lots of space go for it. If you have room for only a few trees, buy something with predictable results. I planted some apple seeds in a plastic bag in damp soil in the fridge in February and large quantities sprouted but I otherwise neglected them. I planted some another year and the soil went moldy.

Good for you Michelle, sure it takes many years to fruit, yet I have read a U of S paper that concludes you can shorten the juvenility phase by cutting some scions ( when your seedling is tall enough) and grafting onto a larger tree. But I am no expert by any means, and I think these scions have to be taken a certain height in the seedling tree.

The jury is out on whether you will get acceptable fruit, some growers say yes others say no. I say go for it anyway.

I germinated some Honeycrisp, and Cripps Pink seeds two winters ago. I only did this because I bit into these apples and the seeds were already sprouting, a perfect sign to me that they needed to be planted. Anyway, all 12 seedlings have proven winter hardy so far.

The seedlings had grown tall enough for me to graft some onto an existing tree this spring.

The fun is in the unknown, especially to a fruit lover.

You will get a whole mix of seedling types if you're depending on random pollination. Research projects developing new varieties might select from 10,000 planned crosses hoping to get positive attributes from different parents. Normally we would expect a cross to have characteristics between those of the parents. If you are doing random crosses and one of the parents is a flowering crab, you will have a problem.

I totally agree, but research is always looking for something better than the parents. They do not want a specimen that is the same as either parent ( an outcome I would be happy with) because that is not a marketable tree. It all depends upon your expectations and goals.

Yes, I intend on growing mine purely for root stock purposes for grafting.

OK...wife says, on the last picture, top seedling with dark leaves is a apple.

Yay, that makes me very happy!!!!! Please hug your wife for me, you both made my day!

But I say no lol. you should find out soon.

Its entertaining hehe

I am curious, if I plant a sour cherry seed, will it grow true to the mother tree?

I don't know about a sour cherry growing true from seed, but I do know that my Evans has suckered and I was able to plant a sucker and grow a new Evans from it.

I read that Kerr applecrab is an exception among apples in that it grows true to the mother tree from seed. Also that it makes a pretty good, hardy rootstock for grafting.

Does anyone know, are there any other apple or pear varieties that grow true from seed?

I thought that I had read somewhere that pears grow true from seed but can't be sure. I have been trying to get a Bartlett seedling to grow into something, it has been dying back but so have other ornamental pear seedling from a local source. My plan is to graft the Bartlett onto the ornamental.

Apricot are the easiest to sprout. Plums I find they need to be chilled longer and or cracked out of the hull. I've planted apricot seeds in August and they sprouted by sept

I have hundred of apricot seeds already trying to figure out a way to keep them from moulding in the cups

I thought I read somewhere that there was no need to graft sour cherries because they grow true on their own roots, I doubt my memory because I cant find where I read it hehe

Most sour cherries in temperate region are grafted but here we mostly grow the tissue cultured trees, [includes Evans] which are on their own roots...naturally, a sucker will be the same. A cherry/apple and pear seedling will differ from the mother tree.

So I can graft different kinds to the one cherry tree I have, I am excited for that! Do you know what cherry root stock is usually used to graft sour cherry trees?

Hard to say...there are so many and new ones appearing almost yearly but the common ones are Gisela, Mazzard and Mahaleb, for sweet cherry also...I got Gisela 5 grafted to pin cherry for future evaluation, survived 3 winters...fruited this year, a little larger then pin cherry, NEED it to root.

That is so awesome,such great news! I hope to graft some to plant at my nephews in the long run. If my Carmine jewel ever sends up a sucker I am going to try and graft Juliet or Evans to it.

In July I budded Evans to some wild pin cherries edging the yard, looks like as of today I have about 1/2 of them still green. Let's hope they make the winter

That is so super exciting!!! I am so excited to hear that!

Since Sour Cherry Carmine Jewel is self fertile it is one of the most likely to grow similar to the parent. This is fairly common amongst self fertile fruiting plants. I have read stats where some varieties of Saskatoon are up over 80% true.

One of the good apple source for rootstock is Dolgo crab. Not sure what the trueness rate is but you can Google Dolgo as a rootstock.

I am an advocate of growing seeds win or loose! If you have a place for another tree or can give it to someone for shade/oxygen it's all good.

I have very few "named" trees and shrubs but I do have the advantage of an old farm yard. This has given us some very unusual chokecherries for instance. We have a purple leaf small fruited that is cling free forinstance. The flesh comes away from the stone very easily.

Good conversation.

All sour cherries are self fruitful and I have grown about 50 Evans trees from seeds, some still around but are useless for its fruits..probably I have picked only a handful in 15 years.