"Suzie-Q" wrote
Wolf K wrote:

andrew fox wrote:
a small tree with loads of fruit it tends to bring the branches
down, rather apple like leaves i suspect?

cheers andrew

Crabapple, ie, the fruit of a tree grown from apple seed. To find out if
it makes good jelly or jam, experiment. Some crabapples make very good
preserves, some don't. The uncooked taste is not a good guide. IMO, any
apple preserve can be improved by adding a little cinnamon and/or lemon
or other citrus. Apples also play well with rhubarb, strawberries, etc.

Apple seeds do not breed true. A tree grown from any apple seed will be
a surprise. Most will be more or less inedible, but some will be good
enough for preserves, and some will be excellent for eating, such as the
varieties we now have. These are all grafts onto wild apple rootstock.
Ie, they're clones.

I find this very interesting so I have to ask, how are
apple trees grown to produce edible fruit, if not from
seed?



They are propagated by grafting...

http://apps.rhs.org.uk/advicesearch/...e.aspx?pid=443

That way all the trees are identical to the original tree of that variety.

Of course to get a new variety you need to plant an apple pip and grow a
tree to fruit and only then can you discover if it was worthwhile.
This article may help show you what happens...

http://www.rhs.org.uk/Plants/RHS-Pub...Bramleys-Apple

Then there is the recent discovered variety, now called "Christmas Pippin",
that was found as a chance seedling of a discarded apple core alongside a
motorway.

--
Regards. Bob Hobden.
Posted to this Newsgroup from the W of London, UK