I was wondering how many people out there have ever played the apple lottery? That is planted apple trees from seed to see if they get lucky with a new tasty variety. I recall that I read or heard that it is about 1 in 10,000 chance to get a good sweet apple from planting from seed. At my parents house we have 6 or so small apple trees that are growing up. The soil is hard clay so growth has been slow but this year my parents said it looks like some of them are starting to catch on. Pictured is a photo from 2018. I don't remember what apples I used exactly as I just did a random grab bag of seeds from store bought apples.

Good luck! That's pretty tough odds on something that will take years and tree space to see the results.
I played the Peach lottery. They come up easily from peach pits in compost. All I have learned is, peaches are so prone to rot here, and need a lot of pruning, and I'm not that dedicated.

You might want to read about proper pruning and at least practice on these as they grow.

BasicallyBasil said:I was wondering how many people out there have ever played the apple lottery? That is planted apple trees from seed to see if they get lucky with a new tasty variety. I recall that I read or heard that it is about 1 in 10,000 chance to get a good sweet apple from planting from seed. At my parents house we have 6 or so small apple trees that are growing up. The soil is hard clay so growth has been slow but this year my parents said it looks like some of them are starting to catch on. Pictured is a photo from 2018. I don't remember what apples I used exactly as I just did a random grab bag of seeds from store bought apples.

In my youth lots of folks used Johnny Appleseeds example and grew apples from seed. Most of them were edible. The most vigorous young trees were kept ( turned out)and often had a known good apple grafted on to them.

Those apple trees used to make good rootstock (before Malling and especially Bugadovsky rootstock became widely available) but as far at taste goes... way too acidic for my tastes and especially my stomach. After two ulcers i am not about to try my fortune again.

All gardening takes quite a bit of patience... planting apple trees of unknown varieties, from seed, takes an enormous amount of said patience, far beyond my limits, I'm afraid. But I certainly wish you well with that project, Jason!

When I was young, my parents "humored" me on doing the elementary school grass seed experiment with an apple seed. You know, you put some grass seeds in a wet paper towel inside a margarine dish with a translucent lid, and they germinate in a few days. I was sure I could do it with an apple seed. The apple had been in the refrigerator, so they were all "it'll never grow, just let her try." Well, it did grow. And now there's an apple tree in the yard of the house we moved to about a year after I sprouted that tree (yes, I made them dig up the tree and move it). We ended up selling the house to a family friend after my dad died, and the tree is still there, but it doesn't produce much. According to them "a few apples every couple years, and they're all tiny and suck." But I still grew a tree from seed. I won't say how old the tree is now, but if it were a "good" apple tree, it would have been productive, well, a couple decades ago.