Can you grow apples or pears from seeds? Thank you

Hi Reese. Welcome to ATP.

Yes, you can grow fruit trees from seed. Here is a bit of info for you. Hope this helps.

http://extension.psu.edu/plant...

http://inhabitat.com/growing-t...

http://www.wikihow.com/Grow-an...

This fellow likes to grow fruit trees from seed. http://skillcult.com/

Welcome, Reese. :)

One of the children started apples from seeds, two different organic varieties, three summers ago and the trees are maybe about 3-4 feet tall now. The Red Delicious didn't come up at all. When they start producing, it will be a surprise, since they won't be the apples we bought. I just hope they are edible as I don't like paying organic prices and we won't eat the non-organic.

We were allowed to pick some apples at our neighbor's taking all we wanted, but not sure the type... slightly tart, very crisp, but good for eating fresh and making sauce with. Years ago, her sons grafted a branch from an apple tree into a crab apple.

One thing to be aware of with apples is cedar-apple rust can occur if there are any cedar trees near by. About all we can do is cut down the cedars on our property.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

That's the big thing with starting any fruit tree from seed - it's a gamble. It does take years and much nurturing to see your first fruit. Then years more to get any amount of fruit.

Then, the fruit you get will not necessarily be the same as the fruit that the seed came from because it very likely was cross-pollinated and almost surely came from a grafted tree. So, you could grow a fruit tree from seed for 4 years, finally get something to taste and find out it's not any good.

If I might suggest, this is a great time of year to buy fruit trees when the local nurseries are clearing out their stock at big reductions. My son bought three Gala apple trees for $13 each for his house a few years back. They bore apples the next year. If you fertilize and spray responsibly, you will get wonderful organic fruit many years sooner than raising from seed.

Thank you to all for the advice and thoughts!

Any time you grow anything from seed, the result may not come true. As indicated above, this is particularly the case with any fruit tree. Growing apples from seed is one of the worst.

DavidLMO said:Any time you grow anything from seed, the result may not come true. As indicated above, this is particularly the case with any fruit tree. Growing apples from seed is one of the worst.

Johnny Appleseed did it. I've always wondered what variety he used.

Hi Kim.
Funny you should ask... John Chapman planted seeds that produced small sour apples used to make hard cider. But, thanks to him, we have the Delicious and Golden Delicious...

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/...

I recently ran across this article while browsing the Smithsonian

A lot of people have done a lot of work since Johnny Appleseed did his thing, to create the yummy sweet, large, thin-skinned, tender, disease resistant, high yielding apples we grow today.

Right. And that is why most are not grown sexually, but from grafting, etc. These days lots of tissue culture.