apple trees grown from pips

[Annpan]

My sister was asking me this the other day and I thought I wouldput it to more knowledgeable people...

When my nephew was very young (3 I think) His Grandpa helped him plant 2 apple pips in some plant pots.

These pots have been getting moved all over the garden and survived a few rough weather spells and some long hot summers. The two trees are now about 3ft tall - in 10 years thats not great but they are in really small pots (8") They look strong though.

Will these trees ever blossom? (not to bothered about fruit)

My sister will gladly find them a prime location in her garden if they will look nice for her... otherwise they go to my mum who will kill them within the year.

[Wormella]

I know with citrus fruit most seeds will grow something but not all of them will produce fruit. Not sure what the hit rate on other trees are.

We've grown a small grove of citrus trees (4 lemon and 2 mandarin) but suspect they'll only every been green leafed things (we're saving them as gifts for people)

[the.fee.fairy]

Sadly, most fruit bought commercially is grown so that the seeds don't produce fruit.

They might, if you're lucky, but the chances are slim.

Get the Pip Book by Philip Morris - its brilliant! It explains about the chances of getting true to fruit trees.

I don't know about getting blossom though - you might be lucky, but i don't think blossom is produced unless fruit will be. Someone can correct me if i'm wrong though.

[possum]

If the trees are grown from seed, then obviously the seed was fertile, so I would expect that it would evetually blossom and fruit, the quality of fruit may be great, or it could be a throw back to an early cross.

The reason why they haven't grown so much is because as you say they are in small pots, once they can establish a decent root and get some nutrients (after 10 years there can't be that much nutrients left in a pot that size) then I would expect them to grow much more rapidly and flower

I am shortly going to be planting some apple pips and also some quince, so I hope I have as much success as you did.

As an aside, I recently dug up what I though was one fruit tree (for other reasons I don't know what it is) to move it. It turned out that it was actually four trees. A stick had been burried, deliberately by the look of it and it had set root and sprouted. I didn't know you could do that with fruit trees. I might try it with some of the others.

[red]

if the seed germinated, then I see no reason why they should not blossom.

its unlikely that the fruit will be the same as the one the pips came out of.

but look at it this way Bramley's seedling, the orginal bramley, was planted as a pip - and thats been a huge success!

I have an old apple tree that was here when we moved last year.. its at least 20ft tall, and has lots of apples. previous owner (who lived here half a century) says it was planted as a pip