In article
,
Billy wrote:

In article ,
sherwindu wrote:

Ted Mittelstaedt wrote:

"sherwindu" wrote in message
...

The whole fallacy of this scheme to grow apple trees from seeds is that
they will all produce awful tasting apples, nothing like the ones from
the
parent tree.

Very untrue. If you don't believe me I'll be happy to provide some
URLs. The topic comes up periodically on many garden sites and lots of
people have reported that apple trees gotten this way produce edible and
many times good tasting apples.

I still don't believe you.



You are also not right that they will produce apples that are nothing
like
the parent tree. They will produce apples that are not exact copies of
the parent tree, but contain elements of both parents.

Actually, this is a recessive gene issue and the characteristics can go
back
further than the original tree.



Both these references do a lousy job of explaining how one propagates
a tree by the own-root system.

Boy you are a lazy one! Are you unable to use a search engine? There's
at least one company out there selling a kit that is a plastic ball you
snap over a branch, you partly girdle the branch, apply root hormone,
snap the plastic around it, then put water in it.

Oh, you mean air-rooting. I have done that with a Plumeria once. Is
this
supposed to be easier than grafting? I can do and have done graphs in
minutes.
I also have the advantage of selecting the tree size by using the proper
rootstock.
With own-root systems, you get a full size standard tree, Ugh.



Maybe they are bending the branches
over into the soil to take root and form a new tree? Beats me. If so,
I still see no advantage of this technique over grafting onto
rootstocks.

How do you -know- that grafting is better?

I just mentioned the size control issue. It's much less work.



See the problem here is that commercial apple growers have been doing
things the way they are doing them for so long that people just naturally
assume that the way a commercial grower does it is the "right" way to
propagate apple trees.

These commercial growers are not as dumb or stubborn as you think.
They have been moving quickly to dwarf trees because the maintenance
and quick time to fruit production are superior to standard size trees.

But, this is only the "right" way if you goal is to
create another commercial orchard filled with the same trees that all
grow the same variety of apples so you can get as close to mechanical
harvesting as possible and sell palletloads of the same apple variety -
which is what the commercial fruit distributors want to buy.

The commercial growers want to grow something that will Reliably
give them a good product. They leave it up to Universities and other
people to come up with new varieties.



This is usually quite different from what a home user wants who wants
to grow a -single- tree. Sure - a grafted Gala or Golden Delicious may
be perfectly satisfying to them - nonwithstanding they can get the same
thing from the grocery store for less money and effort - but what if your
Grandma living out in the country has a special apple tree that you ate
apples from as a kid - and now you want to plant the same tree in your
yard?

The solution to that is to take a piece of Grandma's tree (scion) and
graft
it onto your own rootstock. You make it sound like the selection of
varieties
is limited to the home grower. As a home grower, I have easy access to
literally
hundreds of different scion varieties. I don't have to waste my time
trying
to create something unusual when I have so many choices available.

God help you since the tree is almost certainly NOT going to be
available from ANY commercial nursery. The only thing your going to
be able to do is get rootstock and scionwood from Grandmas tree
if it's still there. And suppose you try that and it doesen't work?

You are a man of little faith. And what makes you think your Own-roots
tree is going to work any more reliably?



And in any case, even the commercial growers don't know that
grafted trees are better - unless every once in a while someone tries
doing it differently to see what happens. It's called a baseline
comparison
and it's regularly done in every other industry. The guy in the URL I
cited living in the UK had a career out of growing trees and he
feels own-root trees have some advantages and the subject was
worth researching further.

As far as I'm concerned, this guy in the UK is a kook until proven
otherwise.
Don't underestimate the intelligence of the commercial growers. They
are
constantly checking for new proven varieties.



Own-root isn't for me - but I think you are very closed minded if you
would turn your back on it.

I also turn my back on UFO's. Seen any lately?



Some apple developers plant thousands of seedlings
with the hope that one of them may turn out usable.

Ah, finally your admitting that there ARE people doing seedling apple
trees.

Yes, but they know what they are doing. You can't seriously expect a
home
owner to come even close to reproducing what they are doing.



But once more, and I will continually hammer on this since I kind of have
some suspicions about your FUD

My what?

, what an apple developer regards as
usable is NOT necessarily what is "just edible"

It better be edible or he won't get any more business.



Long storage life is probably the TOP trait that commercial apple
developers
breed for, followed by bruise resistance, then followed by color. Why -
because
these are the traits that attract shoppers in the grocery store.

That is all changing. Have you been to your supermarket lately. You
will
see
all kinds of new Japanese, New Zealand, U. of Minnesota, etc. apples in
additon
to the old standbys of Red Delicious and Granny Smith.



Taste is WAY WAY down on the list. FAR LESS important than the other
items.

That was true at one time, but I think that changed some time ago.



The REAL truth is that apple developers plant thousands of seedlings
and end up with many hundreds of apples that TASTE GOOD but do NOT
have the long term storability that the industry demands. If a superior
tasting
apple comes along that only has a weeks shelf life, they might try
breeding
in longer shelf life, but it's going to go into the shitcan.

With some exceptions, that is true. However, taste has become a bigger
factor in what you see in the stores. That is the advantage of home
growers
like myself who can grow perishable and ugly fruit to get the top
taste.
It

doesn't always work for the commercial growers.




A century and a half ago there were thousands of apple varieties in the
US
that were
commonly sold - not many of these contained the traits that fruit sellers
want
today. These came about from individual people seeding trees in their
backyards.

Again, your facts are wrong. Most of these seedlings grown by
pioneers,
etc.
were not very good for eating and were mostly used for cider. Since
fresh
water and fruit was sometimes a problem for them in the Winter, they
relied
on the cider. Grafting goes way back to the Roman times. They knew
the
advantages of grafting and that was carried on to the present day.



The smarter ones do selective breeding of apples over periods of years
to
come up with such apples as 'HoneySweet' from the U. of Minnesota.

"Honeycrisp" not "honeysweet" And I hardly call crossing Macoun with
Honeygold to be particularly noteworthy.

Have you tasted a Honeycrisp. I would imagine not. They sell for
three
times
the price of other apples because of their superior taste and
crispness.

Once more, this is just another
of the modern table varieties developed for long storage life - it is, in
fact, the
principle selling point of Honeycrisp - but poor cooking properties as
you have to cook them far longer than other apples before they soften.

There are plenty of other apple varieties suitable for cooking.



U of Minnesota gets a royalty on these which is another reason that the
variety is so advertised. The University is out there banging the drum
for it.

And they deserve it. I grow a Honeycrisp in my yard and look forward
to those apples every year.



The
probability that the seedling would be exactly like the parent tree's
apples is
even much less likely, if not impossible. An apple seed does not act
like
a
biological Zerox machine.

When people resort to straw men to try winning an arguement
is is pitiful. I in no way stated or implied that grown-from-seed
apples would be exactly like the parent tree's apples.

You are trying to trivialize the whole subject. There is no 'free
lunch'
when
it comes to finding new improved apple varieties.

It depends on your definition of "improved" apple varities.

There's no free lunch when you want to have your cake and eat it too.
The apple growers want an apple that will store forever, look fantastic,
not need waxing, not need spraying, be resistant to every known apple
tree disease, every known apple tree worm, be harvestable by gorillas
who slam the fruit into the hoppper and load tons of fruit on top of each
other, growing on trees that are all exactly identical,

and not be immediately spit out in disgust by a consumer biting into it.

I think those are admirable desires, but they know they have to spray
their trees to keep them clean. The consumer wants to know what they
are buying. Stores will not experiment with unknown apples until you
convince them that they will sell.



Yes, there is no free lunch when that is what you want.

But for someone growing a few apple trees in their yard, well what
do they want?

Perhaps what they want is to be able to walk out, pick some apples
for dinner, or for baking a pie, and have the most fantastic tasting
fruit
they've every eaten in their lives. They don't care if a few of the
apples
on the tree might have worms, they don't care if the apples don't look
all that great. They don't care if the apples aren't gigantic.

I grow 15 different apples in my yard. I think they are among the best
tasting ones available and most of them cannot be bought in a store.
I keep the worms out as best I can and can get nice large apples with
proper thinning. I don't care what apples are being sold in the stores
because I have everything I want in my back yard.



Or, maybe they really have no interest in cooking,

I have plenty of varieties for cooking.

and really just want
a fruiting tree that attracts wildlife. (since animals will take what
they
can get and aren't too particular)

I control the animals too.



Oh great. Instead of planting a dwarf tree, plant a full size tree
and chop the hell out of it to make it into a dwarf.

Ah, so all of our goals here are to grow dwarf trees? Where do
YOU live, in some Suburb that has a neighborhood association that
put deed restrictions into your home disallowing trees larger than
15 feet high?

No, I can grow any height. I don't need 20 foot or higher trees that
can't be reached without a tall ladder that could kill me if I fall
off.
Spraying and pruning these high monsters. Forget it.



You frankly sound like you have some personal gain to getting people
to believe that there's no chance to grow an apple from seed and get
anything usable out of it. I really wonder what. Perhaps your
alma-mater
is making a killing on royalties for apple trees.

No, I don't like people like you encouraging people to grow apples from
seed, put years of labor into caring for it, and then discovering that
the
apples
it produces are spitters.



Whatever it is, you are wrong in what your saying. Growing apples from
seed is a viable method of getting a decent apple tree that produces
good tasting apples.

Baloney.

You generally can't do it from apples that come from
the grocery store - since most commercial orchards use crabapple
pollenators and a cross from a Gala (for example) and a crabapple very
likely won't be any good - if the seeds are still viable after apple
processing -
or if the apple variety didn't have sterile seeds genetically engineered
into
it. (one of the many reasons the industry wants genetic enginnering) or
if the apple didn't come from a self-fruit (like Golden Delicious which
will
self-fruit if there's no pollenators around)

I am a self-starter and like to do projects myself, but when it comes
to
developing new apple varieties, I leave it up to the people with the
resources.



But, you can definitely do it from apples that show up at local farmers
markets
that come from mom-and-pop orchards whith maybe 10-15 trees of different
varieties, or heirloom apples (assuming you can find it) since these
often
come from the same kinds of orchards. Or from your neighbors single
apple
tree in his yard that he ignores most of the time. Sure, you have to be
patient
and take time to do it. Years of time. And your probably going to have
to
plant
quite a few of them

Maybe a few thousand.

and expect to cut most of them down once they start
fruiting. But, it's not as unreasonable as you are claiming, many people
have done
it. There's worse hobbies.

What a horrible waste of time. If you were talking peaches, I may agree
a bit more with you, since they propagate closer to the parent from
seed.

Sherwin



Ted

Just an observation Sherwin, do you notice how often you use the word
"I"? Compare the number of times that you use "I" with that of Ted's.
(It's about four times more.) It's a freakish thought that you may
really know something but it seems that you have a way of standing in
front of your information and thus obscuring it.

If you can present your information without inserting yourself into it
so much, I think you would get a better reception.

It is what I call a pronoun problem.

http://groups.google.com/group/sci.m...read/thread/54
fa81d9b6128638/65d89891ab95c346?lnk=st&q=pronoun+problem+wagner&r num=7#65
d89891ab95c346

OR


http://preview.tinyurl.com/2n3sds

Bill

--

S Jersey USA Zone 5 Shade

This article is posted under fair use rules in accordance with
Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, and is strictly for the educational
and informative purposes. This material is distributed without profit.

http://www.ocutech.com/ High tech Vison aid

William Wagner wrote:
In article
,
Billy wrote:


If you can present your information without inserting yourself into it
so much, I think you would get a better reception.

It is what I call a pronoun problem.

http://groups.google.com/group/sci.m...read/thread/54
fa81d9b6128638/65d89891ab95c346?lnk=st&q=pronoun+problem+wagner&r num=7#65
d89891ab95c346

OR


http://preview.tinyurl.com/2n3sds

Exceptionally long links are often preserved by using brackets of the
variety. But it depends on your News client.

http://groups.google.com/group/sci.med.cardiology/browse_thread/thread/54fa81d9b6128638/65d89891ab95c346?lnk=st&q=pronoun+problem+wagner&r num=7#65d89891ab95c346

Exceptionally wordy posts benefit from trimming.

--
john mcwilliams

Billy wrote:Just an observation Sherwin, do you notice how often you use the word

"I"? Compare the number of times that you use "I" with that of Ted's.
(It's about four times more.) It's a freakish thought that you may
really know something but it seems that you have a way of standing in
front of your information and thus obscuring it.

If you can present your information without inserting yourself into it
so much, I think you would get a better reception.

First of all, I am not trying to win any popularity contest here. I'm just
presenting the facts as I see them.

Sure I use 'I' frequently because I'm speaking from over 20 years experience
in growing fruit trees, belonging to several fruit growing organizations, and
years of visiting orchards and researching fruit growing topics. I don't look
for
obscure web sites who quote kooky theories designed for misinformation.
If that bothers you, well I'm sorry for that. Why is it freakish that I may
really
know something? Some people on this forum like to put things on a personal
basis, if there is any disagreement with their ideas. Anyone unfortunate enough
to get type cast as an undesirable gets labeled as a trouble maker and non-
believer. These comments degrade the discussions to the level of the school
playground and unfortunately they are among the most vocal on this forum. I
will continue to insert my own experiences into these discussions as they
represent more solid information to me than all these weirdos dug up on the web.
I am not trying to toot my own horn, but if I have extensive experience in a
certain
area of gardening, why shouldn't I speak of my experiences?

Sherwin D.


--
FB - FFF

Billy

Get up, stand up, stand up for yor rights.
Get up, stand up, Don't give up the fight.
- Bob Marley

John McWilliams wrote:

Exceptionally long links are often preserved by using brackets of the
variety. But it depends on your News client.

http://groups.google.com/group/sci.med.cardiology/browse_thread/thread/54fa81d9b6128638/65d89891ab95c346?lnk=st&q=pronoun+problem+wagner&r num=7#65d89891ab95c346

Exceptionally wordy posts benefit from trimming.

Not only was his replies too long, his links did not work. Yours did, and I find the comparison of my emails to
the one referenced, a big stretch. When people do not have a substancial basis for an arguement, they start
to look for other things to attack. It's probably some form of prejudice or ignorance.

Sherwin D.



--
john mcwilliams

William Wagner wrote:


Just an observation Sherwin, do you notice how often you use the word
"I"? Compare the number of times that you use "I" with that of Ted's.
(It's about four times more.) It's a freakish thought that you may
really know something but it seems that you have a way of standing in
front of your information and thus obscuring it.

You actually took the time to count the 'I's? We should have a 'new rule'
on the forum (like Bill Maher). No more than 3 'I's in any posting.



If you can present your information without inserting yourself into it
so much, I think you would get a better reception.

It is what I call a pronoun problem.

No, it's what I call a nit picking problem.

Sherwin D.



http://groups.google.com/group/sci.m...read/thread/54
fa81d9b6128638/65d89891ab95c346?lnk=st&q=pronoun+problem+wagner&r num=7#65
d89891ab95c346

OR

http://preview.tinyurl.com/2n3sds

Bill

--

S Jersey USA Zone 5 Shade

This article is posted under fair use rules in accordance with
Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, and is strictly for the educational
and informative purposes. This material is distributed without profit.

http://www.ocutech.com/ High tech Vison aid

In article ,
sherwindu wrote:

William Wagner wrote:


Just an observation Sherwin, do you notice how often you use the word
"I"? Compare the number of times that you use "I" with that of Ted's.
(It's about four times more.) It's a freakish thought that you may
really know something but it seems that you have a way of standing in
front of your information and thus obscuring it.

You actually took the time to count the 'I's? We should have a 'new rule'
on the forum (like Bill Maher). No more than 3 'I's in any posting.



If you can present your information without inserting yourself into it
so much, I think you would get a better reception.

It is what I call a pronoun problem.

No, it's what I call a nit picking problem.

Sherwin D.



http://groups.google.com/group/sci.m...read/thread/54
fa81d9b6128638/65d89891ab95c346?lnk=st&q=pronoun+problem+wagner&r num=7#65
d89891ab95c346

OR

http://preview.tinyurl.com/2n3sds

Bill

--

S Jersey USA Zone 5 Shade

This article is posted under fair use rules in accordance with
Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, and is strictly for the educational
and informative purposes. This material is distributed without profit.

http://www.ocutech.com/ High tech Vison aid

Hey, I tried to be helpful. The "I" count was a comparison for your
benefit. Why do you think a person would use so many "I"s in a response?
It's more like a need for recognition than an offering of information.
If you're happy being a pariah, fine, who am I to interfere?
--
FB - FFF

Billy

Get up, stand up, stand up for yor rights.
Get up, stand up, Don't give up the fight.
- Bob Marley

In article ,
sherwindu wrote:

Billy wrote:Just an observation Sherwin, do you notice how often you use the
word

"I"? Compare the number of times that you use "I" with that of Ted's.
(It's about four times more.) It's a freakish thought that you may
really know something but it seems that you have a way of standing in
front of your information and thus obscuring it.

If you can present your information without inserting yourself into it
so much, I think you would get a better reception.

First of all, I am not trying to win any popularity contest here. I'm just
presenting the facts as I see them.

Sure I use 'I' frequently because I'm speaking from over 20 years
experience
in growing fruit trees, belonging to several fruit growing organizations,
and
years of visiting orchards and researching fruit growing topics. I don't
look
for
obscure web sites who quote kooky theories designed for misinformation.
If that bothers you, well I'm sorry for that. Why is it freakish that I
may
really
know something? Some people on this forum like to put things on a personal
basis, if there is any disagreement with their ideas. Anyone unfortunate
enough
to get type cast as an undesirable gets labeled as a trouble maker and non-
believer. These comments degrade the discussions to the level of the
school
playground and unfortunately they are among the most vocal on this forum.
I
will continue to insert my own experiences into these discussions as they
represent more solid information to me than all these weirdos dug up on the
web.
I am not trying to toot my own horn, but if I have extensive experience in
a
certain
area of gardening, why shouldn't I speak of my experiences?

Sherwin D.


--
FB - FFF

Billy

Get up, stand up, stand up for yor rights.
Get up, stand up, Don't give up the fight.
- Bob Marley

User friendly information will get to more people. It's usually (note
usually) the information that is important, not the messanger.
--
FB - FFF

Billy

Get up, stand up, stand up for yor rights.
Get up, stand up, Don't give up the fight.
- Bob Marley

Billy wrote:


Hey, I tried to be helpful.

No thanks. I never asked for your help.

The "I" count was a comparison for your
benefit. Why do you think a person would use so many "I"s in a response?

That was because my personal experiences were more meaningful than the
kooky web references being thrown out.


It's more like a need for recognition than an offering of information.

Are they handing out any awards? Put my name in.


If you're happy being a pariah, fine, who am I to interfere?

If you are referring to the 'groupies' who circle the wagons when one
of them is way out of line, doesn't bother me. This is not a popularity
contest, but a forum to disclose the most accurate information available.

No more advise please.

Be careful, you used the 'I' word twice.

Sherwin


--
FB - FFF

Billy

Get up, stand up, stand up for yor rights.
Get up, stand up, Don't give up the fight.
- Bob Marley