Sure. TF.

I'm definitely interested in saving seeds and planting trees. Space is the main problem, so I probably won't keep many. I did some breeding this spring with Goldrush x Hudson's Golden Gem. I also tried to cross with Pitmaston Pineapple, but found out the tree was misidentified (maybe Prima). If you want any of either, I'll probably have some seeds left, as well as some open pollinated Goldrush (from any of a dozen+ heirloom or disease resistant varieties). Next year, I'm planning to cross Goldrush and Sweet Sixteen. GR and Kidds Orange Red is another interesting possibility.

Thanks for the offer. I would like to get any seeds you can spare. GR x Hudsons Golden Gem sounds like a good cross. Do you have any open pollinated seeds of Hudsons Golden Gem? By the way, I'm pretty sure apple seeds are viable for more than one year.

If you want to send the seeds to me, email me and I'll give you my address.

anyone else willing to send me a few apple seeds?

Does anyone have seeds of the following apples:

Adams Permain
Beni Shogun
Canadian Strawberry
Freedom
Hooples Antique Gold
Hudsons Golden Gem
Jefferis
Keepsake
King of the Pippins
Liberty
Norfolk Royal Russet
Northern Spy
Palouse
Rubinette
Splendour
Suntan
Swaar
Winter Sweet
Yates

I will have Beni Shogun, Reine des Reinettes 1700 (if you consider same as King of the Pippins) and Jefferis in a few years if you still need them in the future.

Am I missing something... but apple seeds saved will not produce the same fruit as the one the seed came from.

Why are you looking to save apple seeds, of all things?

Too much cider, I guess....
Mike

Mes111 is spot on, apples are not true to seed. The only way to duplicate them is by cloning. And if it's a grafted tree make sure your getting your stock from above the node.

Did you even bother to look at my website? mes111, I don't appreciate the insult. If you don't want to plant apple seeds that's fine. It really bothers me when ignorant people try to give advice to others. Of course I know apple seeds don't come true. There are many people who plant apple seeds to try to find a new variety. I have worked with seedlings for a long time. Good seedlings occur more often than you might think. Many people here have found excellent tasting wild seedlings. It's a lot of fun to go on a wild apple exploring trip, especially with a friend or two.

I made my web site to heip people get their seedling discoveries recognized. I'm hoping to get other people interested and start a few test orchards. I am disabled and can't grow apples anymore, so I'm putting all my effort into the web site. http://seedlingapples.wordpress.com/

Hermit

Hermit:

First of... look who is trying to insult whom.

You call me ignorant. I choose not be insulted as I choose to take the dictionary definition of the word... "uninformed or lacking knowledge" rather than the insulting conotation that you are attempting. And of course I was NOT giving advice. I was asking a question. Forgive me for not chasing down your web site in trying to discern what you really meant.

Re-read your post. You said that you were looking to save seeds. It did not make sense to me so I asked about why you were looking to save apple seeds.

Your post was unclear to me as reflected by my question and by Dajsnipe's post, who obviously also apparently and ignorantly misunderstood.

A short " mission statement" explaining that you were looking for seeds trying to find and develop new varieties would probably get you more results. You saved that until your defensive, insulting and tantrum -like response to me. Well, get over yourself because the fact that you are disabled is irrelevant to this conversation and doesn't buy you a free pass for being rude and nasty.

Ignorantly yours,
Mike

I am not sure what you are expecting.... Are you trying to preserve the apples diversity by growing from seed? Are you expecting to get the same tree? All I got out of your site is that you like growing them from seed..

You mention "preserving" apples by plantig seeds. You will not get the same plant by growing seeds. The real deal about apples is that their genes are a gamble. You can plant the species and still get any number of tastes, sizes hardiness and colour. If you are looking to preserve those specific species, you should be asking for scion to graft instead of seeds.

That being said, there is an increased interest in growing them from seed to preserve the genetic lines of many antique apples and to create new resistant varieties. Every single macintosh apple is the exact same tree as the next, the same goes with all commercial apples. This is basically what johnny appleseed (chapman) did, however incidental. Him planting seedling apples in the frontier before settlers got there made him money, made sure the settlers had some food, and also ensured that the apples were diverse and healthy.

Planting from seed isnt a bad idea, just dont expect to get a gala apple tree after planting a gala seed. Be prepared to taste test A LOT of apples you plant.

The best advice I can give is try to get seeds from old antique cider apples. See if you can find courtland, northern spy and the original macintosh apples. The genes are pretty old and should help give some decent genetics.

The other place you may be interested in is Kazhakstan. This is where the apple originated. It is as common there in the forests as maples or oaks in america. It is the center of diversity. If you can manage to get some seeds from kazhakstan, you should have a virutal museum of apple genes. The thing to make sure is that you plant the seeds from the seedling apples as well when they mature. That is where the fun truely begins.

Also, a bit of clarification can help stem some ignorance/rudeness here. Questions are usually honest.

Yes, apple seedlings won't be true to parents and usually results in poor to bad fruit.

But crossing is how new cultivars are developed. As long as someone has the land and patience it seems like a good hobby to me---the next Pink Lady or HoneyCrisp in the wind. It also requires collecting pollen, preventing pollination of the bud by anything other than the pollen applied and careful labeling.

At worse you are looking at cider or topping and grafting onto seedling rootstock down the road. Obviously at a likely evaluation period of 7-10 years per generation of seedlings it is a fortunate few who get to name an accepted cultivar.

I know apple seeds don't come true. Some people are willing to plant known varieties of apples, and there is nothing wrong with that. Other people like to expeirment, and there is nothing wrong with that either. Most of you have never grown seedlings or tasted wild apples, so how would you know how often you can find good seedlings? From my experience, I have learned that good seedlings occur more often than most people think.

One way to find good seedlings is to taste wild apples. It's a lot of fun and you don't have to wait a long time for the seedlings to fruit. I tasted about 400 wild roadside apples and found 20 worth saving. Many people have grafted good wild seedlings. I made my website to try to help those people connect with each other. And, to try to keep those superior seedlings from being lost. On my website, I tell about a man from Oregon, as I am, who collected 100 apple seedlings. When he sold his property, the new owners put goats in the orchard.

I'm also trying to get more people interested in seedling apples. Many of you have wild apples growing near you. Why not taste a few. Or, get together with a friend and go on a wild apple exploring trip.

So, how about sending me a few seeds to help out a fellow fruit grower. Actually, I'm wanting to help other people who have expressed an interest in getting seeds by offering them on my website. Goldrush seem to be a favorite apple of many.

Hermit

My website is about more than just seedling apples. I have a list of triploid apples and other apple information. I also have some information about other fruits.

A friend of mine, Nick Botner, collected over 4,000 apple varieties of apples, which I have listed on my website, and I need people to send descriptions.

http://seedlingapples.wordpress.com/

Hermit

I have often heard experts say to have a few crabapples nearby for pollination, so I would expect seeds not to be too good, if not sterile. Apparently they are excellent pollinators. If you don't isolate the flower, no telling what pollinated it.
I'm interested in genetics and crossing, but not of apples, as I'm like way old already. Wild species are good for new traits, but often carry virus infections too. So it can be problematic as far as raspberries are concerned. Which is my interest. I prefer to obtain wild types from known sources, not actually the wild. At least as far as raspberries go. At this point I'm more interested in just growing some wild Rubus. Crossing or using them may or may not come down the road.

Hermit - Now that I know what your intentions are..

I grow most of my plants from seeds. Bamboo, palms, cycads,to almy veggies and annuals to a seedling of apricot, japanese plum, bosc pear and macintosh apple. Ive also managed to germinate a few trees from seeds as well.

If I had the land I would plant more seedling apples then cultivated varieties. There are usually less chances for disease outbreaks with a diversity of species. There is also a good chance for the genes to mix and create some interesting offspring and desierable traits like sweetness, disease resistance, size and what not. Ive just seen to many sites offer seedlings of certain plants or trees as they are the same as the parent and this is not the case with above mentioned places.

To be completely honest ive been going around collecting apples from old trees here for seeds for the exact reasons you described and more.

Canadian,
I agree, but one must consider an even greater chance of picking up suppressed undesirable traits.
The idea of cloning is we got it right, let's keep it!
Of course someone has to do the crosses to find even better combinations. I think Zaiger got about 25 trees out of 40 thousand tries.
I discovered an old apple orchard abandoned over 40 years ago. Maybe even 100 years ago. Most of the trees were different cultivars. Many were destroyed to widen the road. The apples all over the new easement is how I discovered the orchard. I was curious, and spotted the trees. I made a few Apple Brown Betty's out of them! Apple and Quince crisp with rum raisins I just made tonight with the last of them. One of the apples was kinda cool. As the skin color was leached into the flesh. Never seen that before.
Anyway the apple seeds will not come true to the trees, since many cultivars were close by. I thought of taking scion wood. If I were doing what you're doing I would be taking wood, not seeds. If the one with colored flesh was harder, I would like to have a clone, it tasted good, but the flesh was soft, not my cup of tea. The others were OK, nothing special. Many named cultivars are a lot better than any of these.
Anyway I love to forage as much as grow. So I often harvest wild trees. I'm at least glad to find a new spot for apples. Although it is 240 miles from my house! I often travel the road, so I will be back!
This year I discovered three Mulberry trees too. The wild blackberry-mulberry jam and syrup I made was awesome! Next year I'll be there at a better time and collect hundreds of mulberries.
Tomorrow I'm making quince jelly. I usually make jam, but I want to try my new jelly bag before the end of the season.
A friend grows them and gave me a bag! The jelly will be rose colored and is beautiful looking!

"""Canadian,
I agree, but one must consider an even greater chance of picking up suppressed undesirable traits. """

Thats true as well. Usually the undesierables are a sour bitter apple, or small size. At least the seedling trees shouldnt be any LESS resistant to diseases then the commercial apples

""The idea of cloning is we got it right, let's keep it! ""

Well, we can graft.... We still have problems with tissue culture. Many TC Musa Basjoos have a habit of "collapsing" after a few years, and many TC bamboo are not anywhere as hardy as other selections...

Either way cloning is a curse as well as a blessing. Cloning makes us able to collect that exact tree, getting around apples notorious nature of variability. The only problem is this usually dilutes diversity in feilds and ends up creating a monoculture of the same few species. This is exactly how disease is spread.

OF course, if you were smart enough to tae various scion from various locations you would also end up having just as diverse of a orchard. The olnly problem with that is that the genes are basically locked. The best way to further genetic variation and get any sort of new genes is to let them open pollinate in an orchard with various trees and plant the seeds. Its time for some new genetics out there, and time for people to not be afriad of using something different...

As you put it, worse comes to worse... hard cider or pie!

Now in terms of saving scion, that is not a bad idea as well. Sometimes you will find something worth eating and it should be saved by collecting scion. The real problem is deciding if we want to graft it to rootstock. With wild varieties I dont see this being as importiant, besides controlling size. The hard part would be getting them on their own roots.

Its even better that youve found those old orchards. Some of the types could be site specific; seen nowhere else! Some could be old varieties not seen in a long time. Those old cider orchards are what bread the northern spy and macintosh, some of the most important genes in early apply history in NA. I do hope you go collect some scion, if only for pollination.

Ive thought about walking around here for some wild plants. There arent many fruits, but more then most would expect. We have both native plums - P nigra and americana (depends if you think they are same or different species), quite a few currents, many rasberry types, too many kind of blueberries, and what people call Haskap or honeyberries. There are also wild hazelnuts and oak and 2 species of amelamchier, saskatoonberry and serviceberry (saskberry is a large shrub, while the serviceberry is A. arborea, a larger tree species. There are also many old houses with old apple trees in the yard, usually crabs, seedling or macintosh.

Ill probably end up taking both seeds and scion eventually lol

Hey Hermit,

I'm that guy that searched the late Edwin Martin's properties for his 100+ wild apple selections. It was the first buyers of his property who grazed goats amongst the 100 trees. By the time i got there, only 6 kinds remained, and the property had changed hands again to a non-goat owner.

I put Rouville pollen on Geneva crab (red flesh) flowers last spring and was rewarded with about 35 seeds!