Help With Apple seeds

I don't care if they don't grow true to form

I need to get some of my Crab apple seeds to sprout

The wet paper towel trick in the fridge for three weeks didn't work.

It didn't work because 3 weeks is extremely inadequate for the amount of time it takes them to break dormancy and be able to germinate. It will take several months to do that.

I take my seeds (mine are broken down into smaller bags and labeled as to whet tree they came from), I air dry them for several days and chuck them in the freezer. I put mine in there just before deer season. I will take them out in March and stick them in those little peat moss pre-formed pellet things that come in a black tray with the clear plastic lid and let Mother Nature do her thing. I then take all the one that came up and transplant them in one of my raised beds. I will leave them there until they are about 2 feet tall and then transplant them in the woods complete with a 6 foot tall wire cage around them. I actually tend to loose more trees to mice than anything else.

I’ve just planted them in potting soil, and while not a large amount came up, it did work. Raised them in pots till pencil sized, then grafted pencil size prunings to the rootstock. Worked well and was a fun project!

^this... but I would say about 2 months

Every plant seed will have its own amount of cold stratification needed to break dormancy. I've had rose hip seeds take two years to germinate.

Well then two you tubers are liars

Thanks for the help and ideas

Lol try to freeze the whole crabapple for about 3 weeks then split crabapple in half thawed out of course place In ziplock with a damp paper towel leaving the bag cracked open for fresh air ones seeds germinate remove from fridge have starile potting ready let seed bag acclimate then plant to dampened soil. Good luck

Also if you have any crabapple left on you're tree you could try the some method doing a few every so often so they have been going through a freeze thaw cycle at different rates.

I actually went out of my way this fall to scrounge some rotten apples off trees that had certain characteristics that I liked such as size and especially the ones that stay on the tree all winter and provide a winter time food source for the critters.

I've done peach pits in a zipper bag with dirt in the fridge for a couple months.

Removing the seeds from the split apple?

I would leave seeds in spit apple till they sprout then remove gently to plant in seeding pot plant appleportion but you may get more than one seedling in that case you could try to separate or just cull the less desired seedling- seedlings.[list]
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Thanks G Sage

Good luck 330. Keep us posted on your progress.

Good luck

I will

X2. They need stratification, which is like 3 months of cold temps. You guys should know that apple trees dont bear true for the seeds. This means you need to do a graft if you found an apple tree you like, just saying.

Nonsense as usual. Scott, you need to trust me, I mean if you can't trust me who can ya trust? What you do is freeze the seeds till March. Then you take them out and put them between cheek and gum. You keep them there till May, and then plant. People like me and Teeter aren't always swaping tobacco, we're conservationist!

Just go collect some deer frase that has some seeds in it. The actual scarifying of the seed also gets the germination going.
Then as the ground is thawing in spring use a ice chisel and sprinkle a little deer droppings in every hole and back-heel to close

Take notice if you have a south facing hill where the deer bed in the mid winter...all the little apple trees started...their hoofs have planted them

Hence I originally said above^^^ " I don't care if they don't grow true to form "
Just saying...we knew.

I doesn't matter to deer

I gotcha Catch...you n teeter should know bout seed plantin' an All

Remind me to never loan you my ice chisel!

You can loan it to me or have your kin sell it to me If you pass on.

Ok ice chisel was a poor word to use since everyone south of us wonder what they are used for.

now maybe a rock pry bar is the accepted term....
drive shafts from Model T are perfect since they already have that knob on the end

330 see his lawyer and get it inserted into his will.....we know after his deer hunting the eye sight is going on 160

I know this isn't from seed, but the fastest way to start apple trees is to trim new growth from the branches of the desired tree. You want a piece about 5" to 8" inches long with a couple buds on it. Cut the end at a slight angle and using the edge of a knife lightly remove the outer layer of the young bark about an inch up from the bottom. Not down to the wood, just the young outer bark. set the end of the branch that you are going to plant in tap water for an hour, I've left them up to a day before.

Dip the damp end in rooting hormone, you can also you banana peels. tap off the excess rooting hormone and plant in potting soil. we used fine peat moss mixed with compost. keep the soil moist not wet. check for root growth in about a month. Roots should be at least a 1/4" long.

you can keep it inside all winter the first year as long as it warm and get lots of sunlight. We did hundreds of trees this way every year. we usually had about a 10% loss after the first year.

The link below is similar to how we did it.

Grow apple trees from a branch.