This apple seedling is about 2-3 weeks from breaking the soil Left it outside one night as i did many times and we had freakish high winds and rain that night. the resulting damage can be seen in the picture attached Since then (about another 2 weeks - so the plant is 4-5 weeks old) It has stopped growing. it was doing nice before this. aside from the tips of the leaves looking totally smashed the plant still looks nice and green and vibrant. someone told me that the winds and rain may have triggered it to wanna create some heavy root system to deal with that situation. But im looking for many other opinions is the plant going to be alright? stunted perhaps? will it live? and since its so young will it be worth while to plant another from seed?
Honestly, it's not worth growing apples from seed as the fruit will almost always be inferior to the parent plant. Named apple varieties are propagated by grafting so every plant is identical. Seed grown apples have a mix of genetic material that, unless the parents are carefully selected, result in apples that have more wild characteristics than desired characteristics. Finally, grafted apples will provide fruit in 1-3 years, but the seeds could be 10+. If you're doing an experiment, keep this seedling and start another. You can always throw out the runt.
Although apples that come from seeds usually are inferior to the parent cultivar, it doesnt mean that you will get a bad apple. They might not be of great variety but many seed grown trees produce quite interesting varieties that are still worth eating. And anyways, a lot of the cultivars we have now a days are from apple trees that grew from seeds.. Theres always a chance you might have something worthwhile. And anyways, its fun to see it grow from infancy! I have got two apple trees about 8 months old now.
Thanks for the advice mostly though I was curious as to if the seedling was damaged beyond its own survival not if the apples would make good pie. etc
It might come back if there is still a living meristem. I finally threw out a seedling that had all (its first couple leafs) but its cotyledons eaten by thrips, and months later it still only had a pair of cotyledons. Yours might have a chance yet. I might briefly comment on the supposed inferiority of seedlings. As Spirros touched upon, many of today's grocery store apples were chance seedlings, but only a few came from university breeding programs that selected from thousands of progeny for a new commercially-viable cultivar. A tree grown from seed to maturity has basically proven itself to be adapted to local conditions (climate, soil, pest pressure, etc.), and then it is a matter of how much fruit and what is it good for. The so-called dark side of the Johnny Appleseed story is that all those seedling trees he started were destined to produce fruit for brewing hard cider. American apple culture of today is centered around dessert (for eating raw) apples, and perhaps the odds of getting a superb eating apple from a single seedling are long. I think it is worthwhile to grow from seed. I have a few 1+year-old apples in the ground now and a pear -- started in a pot in winter/spring, put in the earth last September. This could be another topic to explore in another thread. Best wishes for your experiment.
