How long does it take from fruit trees to go from seed to bearing fruit?

[Leeds_lad]

Thinking of taking on the task of doing this. Was wondering how long this would take before it started to pay off? Thinking of mainly cherry, apple and pear

[FB.]

This is a difficult question to answer precisely, since it will be somewhat influenced by the growing conditions (soil, climate etc).
Also bear in mind that seeds will be as different to their parent as human children are.
Seedlings will have some similarities with their parent, but also many differences depending on the other (unknown) parent and depending on which genes they happen to inherit from each of their parents.
Modern apples, for example, are often pollinated commercially by crab apples. So a pip from a shop-bought fruit may well turn out to be a something between a crab and a domestic apple - probably about the size of a golf ball (in-between crab and domestic apple size), and also posessing some of the rather hard and rather bitter characteristics of its crab father.

Pips and seeds from home-grown fruit are generally more likely to either be self-pollinated, or to have been pollinated by another domestic apple. In these cases, the fruit may be reasonably good - but the outcome is still very variable.

Generally speaking, seedlings will be vigorous. Like humans, they often have a hormonal mechanism which prevents much reproduction until they are approaching ten years old - sometimes 20 years old.
This is intended to allow the tree to become large and strong - to compete successfully against the other big, old, established trees.
Needless to say, with all its energy going into growth for many years, seedling trees often become very large. Pears grown from seed can take even longer to crop and can become extremely large - much bigger than apples.

Modern rootstocks have been carefully selected in order to encourage the tree to crop at a much younger age than if it was a seedling, or grown on a seedling rootstock.

Seedling trees, being genetic individuals, also will vary in the amount of fruit they produce (I have heard of some which never fruited, while others fruited after just a couple of years). Generally speaking, seedling rootstocks produce lighter crops than the specially-selected rootstocks onto which we graft fruit trees.

Also, a seedling tree will have unpredictable resistance to the various pests and diseases. Generally speaking, commercial (shop-bought) varieties are very prone to disease, and their offspring tend to inherit this susceptibility. This can result in very sickly seedling trees which remain weak, stunted and unproductive. Certianly my experiments with seeds from shop-bought fruit have resulted in the death of all seedlings by the age of five, usually due to powdery mildew (which is a big problem in my area). I have no surviving seedlings from shop-bought fruit.
I do have a handful of promising seedlings grown from pips of my own fruits (often old, rare varieties with good disease resistance), but the seedlings are several years old and have yet to fruit.

In summary - by all means grow some seedlings for a bit of fun, but don't expect much from them - in that way you won't be disappointed.
Certainly don't waste the time growing a specimen tree from a pip unless you can afford it to produce few fruits or poor quality fruits.

If you want a specimen tree, or if you want early and near-guaranteed result, buy a ready-grafted tree.
If cost is a problem, many come up for sale on clearance for a few quid each, around February-April each year.

[Leeds_lad]

Well I was thinking about asking someone for seeds that I know are not grown commercially and are as natural as they come. The lady with a a garden behind mine has a couple of apple trees so Those would be ideal as I know they will grow correctly then =)

[FB.]

Well I was thinking about asking someone for seeds that I know are not grown commercially and are as natural as they come. The lady with a a garden behind mine has a couple of apple trees so Those would be ideal as I know they will grow correctly then =)

I still wouldn't set your hopes too high. You still won't know for sure what pollinated the neighbours trees, and each pip will be different to its parent in the same way as children differ from their parents.
So there are no guarantees that you'll have a tree of the required size, with the required tolerance of the soil, with the required disease resistance for your area, with fruit which is of good quality and eats/cooks/ciders in a way that you like.

Think of it as a lucky dip.

However, if you plant a large batch of seeds, you can do a lot to help select the most promising candidates (most will die along the way, but if you want a better chance of a good'un you have to be cruel to be kind):

1.
Sow the seeds into your garden soil. Let those which don't like the soil die.

2.
No feeding, and only water in very dry weather.

3.
Do not use any chemicals to treat for insects or diseases.

4.
Select seedlings with larger, darker, thicker leaves.

5.
Select varieties in the vigour range you require, by looking at how big the seedlings are compared to others in the same batch. The smaller/slower-growing seedlings will be natural dwarfs (about 2m or less), while the average growers will probably be about 4-6m when mature and the fast-growers will probably be 8-10 metres.

[DuncanM]

I don't want to hijack this thread too much, but it's semi-related to the subject and advice given by FB.

If I were to grow apple trees purely for firewood / smoking (therefore wanting as much mass of wood as possible as quickly as possible) should I care about the type? I'm going to guess (please correct me if I'm wrong) that all apple wood smells similar, and all cherry wood does too?

If so I guess as many seeds as possible from a local bramley tree would be a good start?

Cheers

[FB.]

Duncan

If you want them for wood, I suggest choosing vigorous varieties (and on vigorous roots), but with an eye towards varieties which are both precocious (crop when young) and vigorous.
I would highly recommend the vigorous M25 rootstock, which grows quickly, but also fruits very early in life.
M25 is actually better than dwarfs for early cropping, since the dwarfs roots are too weak and take a few years to establish (therefore fruit is small and of poor quality, and they don't grow very quickly), whereas M25 has no problems producing god quality fruit and growing at the same time.

If you regularly prune them hard, they will probably start to send up root suckers, so I'd plant them deeper than the graft, then "coppice" them, you will have multi-stemmed fruiting wood, on its own roots.
Have a row of several of them, spaced about 2m apart, and cut them down on a rolling rotation, so that they are cut down just at the time when they have grown to fill their allotted space.

Just like hazels used to be grown.

The variety "Blenheim Orange" used to be highly prized for its excellent wood. However, it is not very precocious, so you wouldn't get much fruit off it.

If you are likely to prune hard and regularly, suggest good disease resistance (canker, mildew and scab) because all that new growth and all the pruning wounds will be possible entry points fo disease.

You speak of using seeds from a Bramley.
However, in my experience, seeds from triploids (and there are a lot more triploids than the nurseries label as triploid) are often very few, and often don't germinate.
This is hardly surprising, given that triploids have an abnormal chromosomes number which becomes even more abnormal in their offspring.

Here are some generalisations in identifying a triploid variety (the more of the following feature, the more likely to be triploid - but these are just a guide and not hard rules):

Vigorous growth.
Open branch structure.
Unusual growth habit.
Large leaves.
Thick, tough leaves.
Dark leaves.
Rounded leaves (as oppsed to slender leaves).
Leaves with noticeably asymmetrical tips (such as off-centre).
Large fruits.
Large flowers (often very attractive).
Poor seed count in the fruit.
Mis-shaped fruit.
Mis-shaped seeds.

I'll see if I can go and take a few pictures of triploid and diploid leaves.

[FB.]

Here you go.

Basically, because triploids have a genetic (chromosomes) abnormality, they have subtle differences which often allow them to be picked-out from diploids.
In much the same way as humans with triploidy of chromosome 21 (Down's Syndrome) usually have distinctive facial features.

Notice the extremely large and dark leaf of Coeur de Boeuf.
Also notice the very rounded shape and very off-centre/pointing-to-one-side tip of Belle de Boskoop - although the leaf is quite pale for a triploid.

Anyway, a collection of different leaves:

[orangepippin]

In my small experience of growing seedling apple trees, the Spartan regime which FB proposes is exactly right, and the ones to look out for are those with the thicker darker leaves.

Seedling cherries might get to 8m but 4m-5m would be good going for a seedling apple tree (it’s not often you see wild apple trees larger than that, and most tend to grow as bushes rather than trees).

If you think you might have a good one, shorten the time to checking the fruit by bud-grafting on to some M27 rootstocks, which will probably give you a few apples the following year, whilst the original seedling will take 4 years or more. In my opinion, if you are serious about trying out apple seedlings then you absolutely have to plant some M27 or M9 rootstocks at the same time to help evaluate the fruit!

[FB.]

4m-5m would be good going for a seedling apple tree (it’s not often you see wild apple trees larger than that, and most tend to grow as bushes rather than trees).

Hi Richard.
It's good to see you here.

Funny you should mention apple "bushes", because only the other day I was arguing with someone that apples are actually bushes which we prune into various shapes - including small trees. Apples -even quite vigorous ones - often are comparable in size to hazels, hawthorns, wild roses, buddleias and lilacs. Only if/when an apple tree is left to do its own thing for a long time will it become a tree. A friend has a large old Bramley - I'd estimate 100+ years old and it is a genuine tree around 20ft height and 40ft spread.
However, there is considerable bare wood inside the canopy and it could easily crop just as heavily if it was half the size.
But it's a magnificent specimen tree and we enjoy garden parties underneath it in summer (the owners put up a disclaimer warning about risk of injuries due to falling apples ).

Many people fret about how big their apple "tree" will get, yet they happily plant other trees which will grow far faster and will be far larger when mature.
I also commented that the phobia of over-large apple trees is generally exagerated, while much more vigorous trees are not considered before planting.

On a curious note, though, in my area the seedling trees (what few there are) only tend to be quite large ones; I don't think that anything less than 4m mature size actually has enough vigour to survive the common summer droughts (this year excepted*). I suspect this is due to difficult climate which strongly selects for only the most vigorous varieties and disease-resistant (perhaps triploids). Certainly, in my current soil, triploids seem to have better vigour and better disease resistance.

Regards,
Nigel

[Nynke]

Hi Nigel,

Is it possible and wise to grow appletrees from seed, and after two years selection on growth and leafs, graft the trees on m26 - rootstocks, so you will have fruits after another three years?
Or do the treebranches need more maturing?

Did you also notice, often the apples from very young trees are different from the apples you will get after 20 years?

I know Hugh Ermen was an enthousiastic propagator from seed. Did he ever documented his experiences?

(I collected most of his own cultivars, but sadly the mouses had a special preference for some of those trees....)

Kind Regards,

Nynke (the Netherlands)

[yummersetter]

I don't want to hijack this thread too much, but it's semi-related to the subject and advice given by FB.

If I were to grow apple trees purely for firewood / smoking (therefore wanting as much mass of wood as possible as quickly as possible) should I care about the type?

I planted standard apples, including triploids, grafted onto m25, in 1990-1992 and the trunks are now, at a guess, 12-20 inches diameter with 6ft clear stems. I reckon they'd only give me a few days firewood each. We do have a good supply of applewood, but we take that from the really old trees, over 50 years old - either if they die and fall over, or by taking out huge branches.
Your most likely source of large amounts of fruit wood would be from an old established orchard that's being bulldozed, I'm afraid. Of my trees, Blenheim and Ribston are the largest of that 1990s planting. It would be sad to grow trees which give such good fruit and use them for fuel before their lifespan is over, though

[FB.]

Is it possible and wise to grow appletrees from seed, and after two years selection on growth and leafs, graft the trees on m26 - rootstocks, so you will have fruits after another three years?
Or do the treebranches need more maturing?

If you graft wood of a spur-bearer in early spring 2014, it will form a maiden whip during summer 2014. In summer 2015 some of the maiden whip's side buds will form into fruit spurs. In 2016 those spurs will flower and fruit. Plants in shadier places may be slower to fruit, or will produce less fruit spurs.
If the tree is hard-winter-pruned, or if the growing conditions are too fertile, the tree will be slower to start cropping since both act to suppress fruit bud formation.
Light summer pruning can encourage fruiting.

If you took a mature or semi-mature tree and used it as a framework for grafting many of its branches with scions of the trial variety, you'd quickly have a lot of fruit for tasting, and a lot of twigs and leaves to start evaluating disease resistance.

[FB.]

m25, in 1990-1992 and the trunks are now, at a guess, 12-20 inches diameter

Trees on M2, MM111 and M25, planted as full standards (including some John Downie crabs) in this area around the same time, only have trunks about half that diameter - about six inches (15cm). Canopy spread averages about 10ft (3m).
The big, old Bramleys which are over 50 years old have trunks about 1ft (30cm) diameter and typical canopies about 16ft (5m).

[DuncanM]

I planted standard apples, including triploids, grafted onto m25, in 1990-1992 and the trunks are now, at a guess, 12-20 inches diameter with 6ft clear stems. I reckon they'd only give me a few days firewood each. We do have a good supply of applewood, but we take that from the really old trees, over 50 years old - either if they die and fall over, or by taking out huge branches.
Your most likely source of large amounts of fruit wood would be from an old established orchard that's being bulldozed, I'm afraid. Of my trees, Blenheim and Ribston are the largest of that 1990s planting. It would be sad to grow trees which give such good fruit and use them for fuel before their lifespan is over, though

My main use would be for smoking foods, as such relatively small quantities would go a long long way. I would on occasion use a log or two to scent fires (either my wood fired oven) or the chimnea. It was semi-hypothetical, as at the minute I don't have enough land to do what I hope. But as FB has suggested when land isn't an issue, I'll have multiple sections, one of which will be coppiced apple and cherry trees.

[boundtothesoil]

Is it possible and wise to grow appletrees from seed, and after two years selection on growth and leafs, graft the trees on m26 - rootstocks, so you will have fruits after another three years?
Or do the treebranches need more maturing?

Hi Nynke,
Check out the breeding methods used by International Fruit Obtention (IFO) in France. Here is a quote from a report summarising their approach to apple breeding:-
"....three to five thousand seedlings are started in the greenhouses every winter and then subjected to intensive care with regard to light, nutients and water. Seedlings reach 2 meters height, or about 70 leaf internodes, by early September. When they pass 70 internodes of growth extension they leave juvenility behind and additional growth is capable of flower bud initiation. mature buds are then inserted into the base of M9 rootstocks. By late winter these trees are cut back and grown during year two into field ready finished trees that will be fruiting in years 3, 4 and 5 in a standard commercial M9 format."

This is a very quick time scale. From what I've read in the scientific literature, the actual transition points in terms of extension growth internodes are:- juvenile to adult vegetative at node 77 and from adult vegetative to adult reproductive at node 122.

I have done a few controlled apple variety crosses over the last three years. My experience is as follows:- Pips/seeds germinate in February or March and after the first growing season in an outdoor nursery bed have usually only achieved 40-50 internodes of growth. At the end of the second year about 20% have achieved >70 internodes and look like unfeathered maidens (0.5- 1.5 m height). At this point, I decided not to prune the single leader back, in the hope that this would encourage further rapid extension growth during the third year, and production of many more nodes. Unfortunately, presumably partly as a result of this, most of the two year old seedlings have produced huge numbers of lateral shoots along the entire length of the main shoot. I've pinched most of these out, but they have reduced the vigour of the main shoot's extension growth. I'm not planning to graft any of these seedlings, although I might change my mind. However, I hope that most will pass through the 77 node transition during their third year and that some will flower in their fourth year.
The photo below shows some seedlings at the end of their second year's growth.