Apples from Seed

Another new project inspired by Steven Edholm. After watching his apple breeding and grafting videos a few months ago, I was inspired to collect some pips and store them in a bag in the refrigerator over the winter. I happened to check on them last week and realized that a large number of them had sprouted and were becoming a large and tangled mass of roots and shoots. Given that it is time now to start my earliest seedlings for the 2017 season, it seemed wise to get the seedlings and ungerminated pips into a tray in the greenhouse before they became too lanky. My intention is to plant these out in a nursery bed and grow them on as seedling rootstocks and attempt some interstem grafted trees in a few years. I'd like to have the vigor of the seedling rootstock and the dwarfing interstem for more robust dwarf trees intended as a Victorian-inspired walled espalier planting for frost protection. Our farm sits in a severe frost pocket and most years the wild apple trees bloom profusely and have the blossoms burned by frost. We rarely see fruit from them. So I am trying out some fun new techniques. This isn't the most efficient or fast way to a homestead orchard, but it has already been fun and educational. Steven's video on planting apple pips. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_dOSZneuBv0 His video on interstem grafting. (first of three) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mjcWqLP65HM&t=15s