The seed in my apple is sprouting. Do you think it’s viable to plant?

by WhereTheHighwayEnds

37 Comments

  1. thejourneybegins42

    Viable? Probably. But it won’t grow into the same apple tree.

  2. Beneficial_Wave7649

    Yes you better plant that thing

    Since the tree came from seed the fruit will be special it’s a gamble it can be bad or it can be good

    Like sour small or big and juicy it’s a gamble

    It will take about 6 years to bear fruit

    And apples need another tree nearby to pollinate them so it produces a good quantity of fruit

  3. Serious-Emu-3468

    Yeah, that’s beyond a viable seed, its a sprouted seedling. It will grow into “an” apple tree rootstock.

    But apple seeds don’t “breed true”, so you could get anything from the Greatest Apple Known To Humanity to sour, inedible balls of hate.

  4. Frosty_Link_9595

    Yup. You’ll get weird apples but likely good for cider.

  5. South_Hope_7619

    You’ve got nothing to lose by trying

  6. oldschoolie

    I planted a sprouting pip and it’s 4 years old now. No fruit yet, will be a couple more years at least. I have other ‘proper’ apple trees in the garden to pollinate it. I’m looking forward to seeing if the apples are edible. Not betting on it!

  7. BaylisAscaris

    As people mentioned in the comments, it could make good or bad apples, and also needs another tree to pollinate. I recommend planting it and when it’s big enough grafting part of it with a variety of apple you like to eat. Leave some rootstock branches, that way you can see if it’s tasty and also get the benefit of a known variety and pollination. You can even graft multiple varieties to the same tree. If the rootstock turns out to be gross, trim most of its branches back so it focuses energy on the good apples.

  8. MantisX

    That tree needs to live man. It deserves it. It got what it needed in there somehow and sprouted anyway. Yes, you must plant this immediately.

  9. Technical_Put_9982

    Johnny , get to work! 🌱🌳🍎

  10. Hard_Luck7

    Yes—I did that five years ago, and now I have a large apple tree and I’m enjoying my first harvest this season.

  11. Quirky_Stranger2630

    Looks to me like the Apple wasn’t waiting for you to ask that question.

  12. I have 3 trees in my yard from this exact thing!

  13. AccomplishedDark9255

    Yes it wants to live, plant it! You’ll get fun mystery apples that might be edible or not but that’s not really the point.

  14. Second_breakfastses

    We had a Macintosh tree when I was a kid, our family would throw the cores from eaten apples into the fallow field by our house. Several trees grew from seed over the years. Most of the apples were hard and sour, but some of them were pretty good to eat. 

  15. doubleohzerooo0

    I grow apple seed bonsai material all the time!

    Put that sproutling into some good, free draining soil, give it light, water, and you might end up with a free, cute little tree.

  16. xmashatstand

    Go for it, it’ll be an adventure finding out what you wind up growing!

  17. EnrichedUranium235

    You are only a week further along using that vs using a non sprouted seed from any other apple.

  18. Remarkable-Mud6318

    I planted one last year similar to this. Got it into soil in the winter when I found it and then transplanted into my yard In the early summer. Hoping it survived the winter….

  19. Which_Indication169

    Yes you can grow this to create a tree. Depends if you’re talking about getting fruit from this seed or a ‘viable’ apple product or even an edible product. I work for a new plant variety commercialisation company, with apples being my technical area. Specifically I advise apple breeding programs and globally test late stage products to create product specifications.

    It’s very unlikely to become something nice. Even from commercial breeding programs 99% of the products are thrown out. I assume you brought this apple and so it’s an open pollinated seed from a commercial farm. The pollinators used are often not great parental cultivars either being crab apples or older cultivars the farmer can access cheaply as the only requirement needed is the flowering window and compatibility not fruit quality.

    But if you want to, yes you can definitely grow it. Growing from seed you will need to be patient and grow it out of the plants juvenility of phase before it will flower. Also understand it will grow on seedlings rootstock which generally means highly vigorous trees with smaller poorer quality fruit. Once your tree has fruited I would graft wood to a more suitable rootstock.

  20. NerdyComfort-78

    I’ve got a mystery fruit tree courtesy of the birds. I am going to let it be… it’s about 2in in diameter now and 10 ft tall.

  21. Jimbobjoesmith

    in my mind, those are the strongest seedlings. i dunno if it’s true or not, but every time i find a tomato like that i plant them.

  22. Accomplished_Tell_18

    Yes. I found one in a grapefruit recently and popped into some soil.. just broke the surface a week ago. Should have an orchard in no time!

  23. SowingSeeds18

    The most direct compost I’ve ever witnessed 😂

  24. Glittering-Pace-2837

    Why not , it won’t hurt to plant it..it grows or its doesn’t

  25. TxTechnician

    I’ve never been able to sprout apples from seed. That’s pretty cool.

    But as others have said.

    It’s a genetic lottery that will either bear fruit (low chance) or sour balls of hate. Like tiny balls of hate. I’ve got 3 of those trees on my property. Very pretty, no fruit just tiny seed balls.

  26. ThanksS0muchY0

    It’s called vivipary when seeds do this. It is viable, but will not be 100% true to the original plant. A lot of apple varieties also utilize root stock, meaning they graft a scion (growth tip) of a variety that is bred for delicious fruit onto a root stock of a variety that is bred for strong roots. A lot of rootstocks make bad fruit, and a lot of good growth tip varieties have poor root structure. Personally, if I had time and a pot, I would grow it for fun. But I already have too many potted trees and plants, so I would just enjoy the apple!

  27. sixtynighnun

    There’s couldn’t be a clearer way to know if it’s viable beyond what we are looking at now. Viable af plant her up but prepare yourself for a crab apple

  28. Dark_Moonstruck

    Certainly you can plant it! Just don’t start planning on what you’re going to make from those apples just yet.

    Most trees that produce edible apples are grown through grafting. Most trees grown from seed produce sour or bitter apples that aren’t good for much of anything besides cider, or vinegar. They’re not good eating or baking apples.

    When they DO produce good apples, branches from that tree are grafted onto rootstock from other trees – sometimes ones that aren’t even apple – to grow more trees that will produce the good apples. That’s how most orchards come to be.

  29. Additional-Top-8199

    I found a seed sprouting in my grapefruit. Now I have a grapefruit sapling.😎

  30. Educational_Bet_915

    si, de hecho lo veo bastante viable, no veo porque no intentar que crezcan

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