B.uneasy
Chumono
If you collected seeds from an ornamental crabapple that has small little fruit at a mature age, do you have the chance of getting large edible fruit from the offspring? Are they like apples, never exactly like the parent plant?
Crabapple
- Thread starter B.uneasy
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AlainK
Imperial Masterpiece
... you would, actually you will always get a tree with small fruit. Size will vary, usually if collected from street trees, from 3/4 to 1 inch.
Leo in N E Illinois
The Professor
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From seed means there has been a genetic re-assortment, the seedlings are GUARANTEED to be different than the parents. In the process of forming seed, the plant equivalent of sex occurs, which is a process the recombines the genetic material. One half of the female parent's genetics are missing from the seedling, the other half is from the pollen donor, or male tree involved in the cross. If the tree self pollinated, fertilized itself, even in this situation typically 25% of the genetics of the parent are not expressed in the seedling. It is always random, so you never know what traits will be expressed. There are whole advanced degree programs dedicated to learning how to predict which traits will be passed on through pollination.
Sometimes the differences are slight, sometimes dramatic. Crab Apples and domestic culinary apples are pretty much the same hybrid swarm, more or less one freely interbreeding species. Pollen is moved by bees and other insects. If there were only other crab apples within a mile of your seed source crab apple tree, then your offspring will be more or less a typical crab apple. If there were some culinary apple trees within 1 mile of your crab apple, there is the possibility a few of the offspring will be a mix of the two types. The fruit could be intermediate between the culinary type and the ornamental type. These hybrids tend to favor the crab apple in fruit size, in that the size of the fruit is not a linear function. The culinary apple will at most double the size (diameter) of the crab apple fruit, which for most crab apples still leaves you with small fruit.
Virtually all crab apples can be used as an edible fruit, the flavors are within the range of cider apples. But their small size, and proportionately large amount of seed, stems and such relative to flesh, means most are not worth the effort unless you are in a starvation situation.
Crab apples and domestic culinary apples tend to be slow to begin blooming from seed. Often it takes more than 10 years to first bloom. There is a small probability a seedling will bloom sooner say in 5 years, the vast majority will take around 10 years or longer to bloom the first time from seed. There are some apples and hawthorns that don't get around to blooming until their 25th year.
The slow to begin blooming is the reason most bonsai growers start with rooted cuttings or more mature plants grown from rooted cuttings of crab apples that are already blooming size and age.
Most nurseries and garden centers that are not dedicated to bonsai will reproduce their crab apples and culinary apples by grafting as you can produce blooming size trees in large numbers quicker than one can do so from cuttings. In general grafted trees tend to be a poor choice for bonsai. You should seek out sources of cutting grown cultivars (cultivar = clone = originally from a single seed) Cutting grown cultivars propagated with bonsai as the purpose. Evergreen Garden Works is my suggested source. This will save you many years.
Sometimes the differences are slight, sometimes dramatic. Crab Apples and domestic culinary apples are pretty much the same hybrid swarm, more or less one freely interbreeding species. Pollen is moved by bees and other insects. If there were only other crab apples within a mile of your seed source crab apple tree, then your offspring will be more or less a typical crab apple. If there were some culinary apple trees within 1 mile of your crab apple, there is the possibility a few of the offspring will be a mix of the two types. The fruit could be intermediate between the culinary type and the ornamental type. These hybrids tend to favor the crab apple in fruit size, in that the size of the fruit is not a linear function. The culinary apple will at most double the size (diameter) of the crab apple fruit, which for most crab apples still leaves you with small fruit.
Virtually all crab apples can be used as an edible fruit, the flavors are within the range of cider apples. But their small size, and proportionately large amount of seed, stems and such relative to flesh, means most are not worth the effort unless you are in a starvation situation.
Crab apples and domestic culinary apples tend to be slow to begin blooming from seed. Often it takes more than 10 years to first bloom. There is a small probability a seedling will bloom sooner say in 5 years, the vast majority will take around 10 years or longer to bloom the first time from seed. There are some apples and hawthorns that don't get around to blooming until their 25th year.
The slow to begin blooming is the reason most bonsai growers start with rooted cuttings or more mature plants grown from rooted cuttings of crab apples that are already blooming size and age.
Most nurseries and garden centers that are not dedicated to bonsai will reproduce their crab apples and culinary apples by grafting as you can produce blooming size trees in large numbers quicker than one can do so from cuttings. In general grafted trees tend to be a poor choice for bonsai. You should seek out sources of cutting grown cultivars (cultivar = clone = originally from a single seed) Cutting grown cultivars propagated with bonsai as the purpose. Evergreen Garden Works is my suggested source. This will save you many years.
AJL
Chumono
What about air-layering? Surely that would save more time than cuttings to get a mature- looking and flowering tree?
How easy is it to air layer Malus?
How easy is it to air layer Malus?
rodeolthr
Shohin
My personal experience is that they are exceedingly easy to air layer, often forming a large quantity of roots in just a matter of a few weeks, far less time than some varieties of woody shrubs/trees. I've also had very good results in rooting cuttings (flowering with multiple branches ) in sealed containers with bottom heat. I'm uncertain if the bottom heat is necessary, it's just the set-up that I have.
amcoffeegirl
Masterpiece
In spring I am going to get one for sure.
The one I want is called Louisa. I’m not certain if it will be a good candidate for Bonsai or not since it does grow in a weeping style.
The one I want is called Louisa. I’m not certain if it will be a good candidate for Bonsai or not since it does grow in a weeping style.
evergreengardenworks has about any crabapple you might want, and in different sizes.
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