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Why planting a seed-grown apple tree won’t develop sweet fruit

March 15, 2025

If you plant a seed from a Gala apple, the chances are one in a hundred (or less) that the fruit produced from the tree that grows will be sweet.

As Henry David Thoreau remarked, such seedling-grown or pippin apples are “sour enough to set a squirrel’s teeth on edge and make a jay scream.” The reason for this is that apples have a highly diverse gene pool due to their tendency to be self-sterile, meaning they require cross-pollination — a bee landing on a flower of a Fuji tree, for example, would pollinate a Gala flower — to consistently produce seeds and fruit. Thus, the genetic make-up of their seeds and the trees and fruit that grow out of them will reflect the multi-faceted genome constructed from disparate gene pools mixed together.

Such a mixture of “wild” genes are not conducive to sweet fruit. Yet it is actually to the advantage of fruit trees to be somewhat, if not completely, self-sterile. That quality means increased receptivity to the pollen of other individuals, as opposed to their own pollen, assuring genetic diversity of its seeds in the next generation. This diversity ensures resistance — among at least some of the tree’s offspring — to a wide spectrum of stressors such as drought, flooding, cold, disease, or insect pest infestation.

Self-sterility — also called self-incompatibility — is not absolute. If you plant a single Gala apple tree without a Fuji next to it, you will still get fruit, but not as abundantly as if it were kept company by a Fuji. Still, if you only have room for one fruit tree and still desire a crop, you do have options. At onlineorchards.com, a collection of 60 “self-pollinating fruit trees” of all types is available, including a dwarf Gala apple.

By the same token, if you plant a seed from a peach or an apricot, as opposed to an apple, there is a fairly good chance that it will grow into a tree with sweet fruit. The reason for this is that peach and apricot trees, referred to as self-fruitful, pollinate themselves — a bee landing on a flower successfully pollinates another flower on the same tree — and do not require another tree to fruit. Thus, their gene pool is small and the fruit that grows from their seeds is pleasantly predictable. Yet the progeny of these trees will also be less equipped to cope with the kinds of stress that a diverse genetic makeup could tolerate. It should be emphasized, however, that even self-fruitful trees will produce a bigger crop with bigger fruit when planted next to a different variety of the same tree that blooms at the same time.

Insufficient bee activity at bloom time can affect fruit quality. If your apples are asymmetrical or slow to ripen, that’s a sign of inadequate pollination. An apple flower (its ovule, specifically) pollinated only once by a bee will not grow into a quality fruit; the fruit will be small and probably drop before ripening. With apples, multiple pollinations are necessary to ensure multiple seeds, which send out the hormones necessary for optimal fruit development. Even the quantity of calcium in an apple, for example, and its shelf life will decrease when pollination is inadequate. Properly pollinated apples have 7-10 seeds.

Bad weather can also affect pollination. If there is heavy rain or excessive wind when flowers are in bloom, the petals can be knocked off the tree. Excessive moisture could also cause the petals to rot, discouraging bee activity. To ensure an adequate supply of bees, you can set up a hive of your own. In the city of Los Angeles, one backyard beehive is allowed per 2,500 square feet of property — in single-family home neighborhoods only — and will require a barrier at least six feet tall between hives and neighboring lots so bees fly upward as they leave, as well as a water source so bees don’t go looking for water elsewhere. Hives are banned in front yards and within five feet of lot lines. Beekeepers also have to be registered with the County of Los Angeles Agricultural Commission.

The fact that apples grown from seedling trees are extremely tart and basically inedible — as opposed to cloned or grafted trees — did not hinder the efforts of Johnny Appleseed, the popular name for John Chapman (1774-1845). Chapman did not plant apple seeds indiscriminately but set up nurseries where his seedlings would grow. These nurseries were situated in the path of settlers going west. Thus, the value of the land where Chapman established his nurseries increased as settlers began to populate his nurseries’ environs. Moreover, after setting up a nursery, Chapman would partner with someone local who would sell the trees. This allowed to Chapman to move on and start more nurseries further West. He would travel back and forth from his nurseries, collecting the profits to buy more land.

Chapman was an eccentric character with a proselytizing bent. His mission to plant apple trees paralleled his mission to spread the mystical teachings of Emanuel Swedenborg, a Swedish theologian. Chapman walked barefoot, even in the snow, and famously wore a tin pot on his head, serving both as a cap and as a cooking utensil. He dressed in old clothes received as barter for his trees. Although he had the appearance of a pauper, he was land rich, having accumulated 1,200 acres in Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Indiana at the time of his death.

Chapman did not utilize hybrid or grafted trees in adherence to the Biblical injunction he found in Swedenborg’s teachings — “You shall not sow your field with two types of seed” (Leviticus 19:19). Extrapolating on this verse, Chapman was unusual among apple growers in never planting grafted trees, but only apple seeds, giving rise to the “Appleseed” moniker.

This actually worked to his advantage since seedling apple trees typically produce a crop that, although inedible, still has one marketable quality, that of being excellent for fermentation into hard cider. A stunning statistic from the early 1800s reveals that Ohioans at that time, from the age of 15, drank an average of 30 gallons of hard cider per year.

In a 2001 NPR radio interview, the food and culture writer Michael Pollan commented on Chapman’s enterprise as follows: “Johnny Appleseed was bringing the gift of alcohol to the frontier. That’s why he was so popular. That’s why he was welcome in every cabin in Ohio. He was the American Dionysus. He was the guy bringing the booze.”

During Prohibition (1920-33), when the production and sale of alcohol was outlawed in the United States, most of Chapman’s trees were cut down due to their fruit’s reputation as a source for hard cider. Of all the trees he planted, only one, in Nova, Ohio, remains today. Nearly 200 years old, it still yields a prodigious crop.

The South Bay Water-Wise Garden Tour is a self-guided/self-drive tour of drought-tolerant gardens and California native plants. The 15th annual tour will be held on Sunday, April 13, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Tickets are $10, with proceeds donated to Gardena Willows Wetlands Preserve. For ticket purchase, go to southbaywaterwisegardentour.com.

California native of the week: White chaparral currant has qualities that make it stand out among California natives. It is summer deciduous, a quality that is unusual among California woody plants in general. This species also has flowers with a noticeably sweet fragrance, a characteristic not typically associated with our natives. Its flower clusters consist of up to 25 tubular blooms, which are charmingly pendulous during their flowering period at this time of year. Flowers are magnets to hummingbirds and every kind of bee. Reaching over six feet in height, white chaparral currant can grow in full sun but appreciates light shade. It is extremely drought-tolerant once established. In the manner of most California native currants and gooseberries, its fruit are edible, but not especially palatable, the exception being golden currant (Ribes aureum), whose plentiful crop is an irresistible treat.

Do you have an apple tree experience to share? If so, please send it along to [email protected]. Your questions and comments, as well as gardening challenges and successes, are always welcome.

Orange County Register

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Why planting a seed-grown apple tree won’t develop sweet fruit

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