Specialist retailers have a large selection of apple trees in different varieties and trunk forms. If you have a little patience and enjoy the experiment, you can also grow an apple tree yourself from a core.
How to grow an apple tree from a core?
To grow an apple tree yourself from a core, you need cores harvested in the harvest year, which must be stratified in the refrigerator for two weeks before being placed in soil and allowed to germinate.
The special feature of growing fruit trees
Many shrubs and flowering plants can be propagated using cuttings and root cuttings. Techniques such as moss removal are now being used in more and more private gardens to propagate plants. However, these techniques cannot really be used successfully for the propagation of apple trees and other fruit trees. Rather, in the apple tree, a seedling is grown from a core, which is then grafted with a scion at a certain trunk height if necessary and as is usual in commercial cultivation.
Reasons for grafting apple trees
When an apple blossom is pollinated, the genetic information from the pollen is combined with the genetic parts of the flowering apple tree. In the wild, the origin of pollen is largely uncontrollable, so there can be surprises when pulling an apple tree from a core. If, on the other hand, a scion of the desired apple variety is grafted onto a suitable rootstock during grafting, the growth of branches, leaves and fruits corresponds to the gene pool of the scion variety. In commercial horticulture, only grafted trees are usually used under professional guidance in order to obtain trees of the same variety and similar growth.
Shaping a home-grown apple tree
If you simply let the home-grown seedling grow, it will usually reach a rather impractical height and growth habit. You have a better chance of yield if you refine the tree into one of the following tree shapes using a scion and targeted cuts:
- Espalier tree
- Pillar Apple
- Bush
- Half trunk
- High trunk
Tips & Tricks
You generally don't need detailed instructions to grow an apple tree from a core. Please note, however, that you must first stratify the seeds in the refrigerator for about two weeks before germination in the harvest year.