Fruit trees from shop bought fruit ?

[Philplot]

I have been saving dozens of stones from the weekly shopping.
Peach stones, Nectarines, Plums, Cherry stones, etc
Five small boxes, each with differing quantities in.
Just wondering if any of these are viable seeds, or do the supermarkets sterilise them somehow.

[Kristen]

They will most probably be viable, but they are unlikely to grow into good fruit bearing trees. Well known varieties of fruit (well, anything really from Roses to Parsnips) are the results of careful selective breeding - breeders cross Parent A and Parent B and then sow the seeds, and from those offspring 99% - or more probably 99.999% - turn out to be rubbish and are thrown away, but the occasional good ones are grown on and propagated vegetatively (by cuttings or grafting etc.) because their seeds will not grow "true" like the parent tree they came from.

You might get the Next Best Thing ... but the odds are long. So more likely you will spend years growing the seeds until you get fruit and then be disappointed with the results. My advice would be to save yourself the time and buy a good quality plant of a variety that you like to eat - a fruit tree will carry man many times the value of fruit, in its lifetime, that will repay the cost of the original plant many times over.

[Alison]

My SIL and brother grew liars of apples from pips and despite everybody saying they'd never do anything, they now get bucket lists of fruit of a pretty good quality. Not sure they're beautiful trees and none of them are grafted to anything but in their heavy clay soil the do very well. Likewise many of the trees etc at the sides if the road are from people throwing remnants of fruit out the window and are well worth a forage. However in my small garden I want greater surety and neater specimens

[Kristen]

My SIL and brother grew liars of apples from pips and despite everybody saying they'd never do anything, they now get bucket lists of fruit of a pretty good quality

Its still a lottery though ... plus a long-ish wait ... don't you think? Apples are designed to produce fruit, and good enough for passing animals to eat, and distribute the seeds thereby, I presume? so I reckon they are likely to produce something with reasonable taste, rather than anything foul But even so, for the price of a plant, I would prefer to plant a known-good-variety rather than tossing a coin - even if it is heavily weighted to Heads

[VolesAteMyPeas]

I successfully grew a morello cherry tree from a shop bought seed. Unfortunately, I never found out if it even fruited as my cat ate it before I could find out! Also grew a satsuma many years ago but it died after about three years and never fruited. Mind you, I had no idea how to look after it then.

[Alison]

Its still a lottery though ... plus a long-ish wait ... don't you think? Apples are designed to produce fruit, and good enough for passing animals to eat, and distribute the seeds thereby, I presume? so I reckon they are likely to produce something with reasonable taste, rather than anything foul But even so, for the price of a plant, I would prefer to plant a known-good-variety rather than tossing a coin - even if it is heavily weighted to Heads

Agree totally, they've got loads of space and fancied giving it a go. Not something I can be bothered with as I've not got the space to experiment.

[veggiechicken]

A lot depends on whether you're growing them for fruit, as an "ornamental" or for an experiment. I always choose the latter
To date, I've germinated various citrus plants. cranberries, kiwiberries, dates and probably more that I can't remember. I like the challenge of getting them to grow but wouldn't hold my breath for them to fruit.

[Guest]

I managed to keep a lemon tree going for over 10 years but never a flower or fruit but it was a nice large plant with fragrant leaves

[orangepippin]

Apples don't grow true from seed, and since the pollen parent is probably a crab-apple (planted in the orchard for that purpose) the resulting pips are unlikely to produce nice apples. However the stone fruits you mention do often grow true from seed so you are more likely to be successful with those, although they might not be varieties that are suitable for the UK climate.

[Philplot]

Agree totally, they've got loads of space and fancied giving it a go. Not something I can be bothered with as I've not got the space to experiment.

The allotment is 505 square meters ( 5435 square feet ) so I have plenty of room for young trees.
Not that they will be going in the ground.
If they do germinate, into black buckets, with plenty compost.
It's fun finding out for yourself.

[simon12]

I don't think its been said yet but the stone fruit will produce huge trees (6m would be small) if not grafted.

[starloc]

In Bulgaria I have seed grown peach trees all over the garden, fruiting at about 5 years old, fruit quite a bit smaller fruit about apricot size , but very much better than UK shop fruit , size about 6 foot tall bushes due to cutting main stem at about 1 meter high, fully grown they seem to be about 20 to 30 foot high unpruned

Seed grown plums seem to be about 7 foot tall when start fruiting and then can be kept pruned, unpruned at about 8 years old 9 foot high, over 30 years old about 20 foot high , plum fruit seems to be similar to the parent 30% of the time or a cherry plum type, always with massive thorns

Sour cherries, seed grown 3 years to fruit, fruit seems identical, about 8 foot tall at 3 years old, with no pruning , parent tree next to them is 50 or 60 foot high

[Alison]

Apples don't grow true from seed, and since the pollen parent is probably a crab-apple (planted in the orchard for that purpose) the resulting pips are unlikely to produce nice apples.

The ones I discussed further up the thread produced huge quantities of beautiful apples in a surprisingly short period of time so although it is often said that they won't be worthwhile, that is by no means necessarily the case, more a risk than a fact.