Apple Cores

aardvaak

Driving home today I was thinking (Not that I discarded anything) what is the likelihood of a discarded apple core actually producing a small apple tree at the roadside bearing in mind of germination problems or even being eaten by wild animals or vermin.

Elsewhere

I think it must be very unlikely. By the roadside you also have to add in mowing and hedge trimming, or if it's a main road salt spreading in winter.

We have 5 acres, most of it ancient semi-natural woodland i.e. almost undisturbed. There are only two old crab apple trees - one right at the top edge beside an area that is a veg patch and before that a rubbish dump for what was a pub a hundred years back and the other right on the bottom boundary alongside a railway line. Both are near our boundary which has a public footpath alongside.

So I assume that both these trees are the result of humans chucking away apple cores... surely if it was animal activity they'd appear randomly in the woods or along the inaccessable boundaries?

The pub (then the veg patch) and the railway line have been there for 150 years - so if we assume 2 discarded cores a week on each boundary each containing an average of 8 seeds that's 124800 pips on each boundary of which one produced a tree on that boundary - so that's nearly eight chances in one million. If you could live for 150 years you'd be 20 times more likely to be struck by lightning sometime in your life than have one of these pips grow into a tree.

nb. please feel very free to disagree, I have a maths degree but probability was always my worst subject!

andrewf75

Elsewhere wrote: »

I think it must be very unlikely. By the roadside you also have to add in mowing and hedge trimming, or if it's a main road salt spreading in winter.

We have 5 acres, most of it ancient semi-natural woodland i.e. almost undisturbed. There are only two old crab apple trees - one right at the top edge beside an area that is a veg patch and before that a rubbish dump for what was a pub a hundred years back and the other right on the bottom boundary alongside a railway line. Both are near our boundary which has a public footpath alongside.

So I assume that both these trees are the result of humans chucking away apple cores... surely if it was animal activity they'd appear randomly in the woods or along the inaccessable boundaries?

The pub (then the veg patch) and the railway line have been there for 150 years - so if we assume 2 discarded cores a week on each boundary each containing an average of 8 seeds that's 124800 pips on each boundary of which one produced a tree on that boundary - so that's nearly eight chances in one million. If you could live for 150 years you'd be 20 times more likely to be struck by lightning sometime in your life than have one of these pips grow into a tree.

nb. please feel very free to disagree, I have a maths degree but probability was always my worst subject!

I may have misread your post but if the trees are crab apples then surely they can't have grown from discarded apple cores?!

RAS

I have grafted trees from two seedling apples because the fruit is good. One was found next to an outer ring road and the other in a garden area. Both are on the fence line.

If you look at a park in early spring, the grass is littered with seedling trees until the first cut. The same decimation would happen with grazing by livestock or small mammals or trampling by feet.

However if the seedling is tucked away out of reach then it can grow. It may or may not produce anything of any merit. But selection of seedling trees is after all how most older varieties were found. Deliberate breeding was rare until 18th century and even after that a good accidental seedling was usually the source of local varieties.

olias

Surely these trees will have been dropping thousands of apples every year, plants dont only grow from discarded fruit that has been half eaten by humans or animals

Olias

Living_proof

We have loads of self-sown apples around here but the fruit can be really disappointing although prolific. One we found had three different distinct apple varieties on it. They are in areas which don't get cut, on banks, etc/

Elsewhere

andrewf75 wrote: »

I may have misread your post but if the trees are crab apples then surely they can't have grown from discarded apple cores?!

Apples grown from seed ie. sexual reproduction are very unlikely to produce a carbon copy of the tree they came from, any more than your child would be your clone. That's why apple trees are grafted.

"Crab apple" is really a catch-all term for trees that produce very small, usually sour apples. Crabs are often planted in orchards to help the pollination of the cultivated trees.

andrewf75

Elsewhere wrote: »

Apples grown from seed ie. sexual reproduction are very unlikely to produce a carbon copy of the tree they came from, any more than your child would be your clone. That's why apple trees are grafted.

"Crab apple" is really a catch-all term for trees that produce very small, usually sour apples. Crabs are often planted in orchards to help the pollination of the cultivated trees.

Interesting, thanks didn't know that

Farway

You only have drive along the A4 Bath Road near Newbury to see the chances are pretty good, the apples like nice & red, no idea about taste

RAS

The "native" Crab apple (Malus sylvestris) is not the same as the domestic apple tree (Malus domestica). Its wild ancestor Malus sieversii is still found in Central Asia.

Both crab apples and domestic rootstocks seem to be planted in road side planting schemes after major road works