Growing Apple Trees from Seed
The seeds are not going to produce a granny smith or a delicious apple tree. They would produce a tree with mixed genetics. Granny smith and delicious are hybrids themselves, this means the new seeds would be ploy-hybrid. Seeds have to be treated with cool temperatures for a certain length of time before they will germinate.
If you collect seeds from an apple and put them in soil or a terrarium, your apple seeds likely won’t germinate for 2 reasons. The seeds need a dry out period followed by a stratification period. If you skip these 2 steps you probably won’t have success germinating your apple seeds. If you want to germinate apple seeds collected from an apple first let the seeds dry out for 3-4 weeks.
If you chose to add soil you can moisten the soil after about 10 or 11 weeks. You should start to see leaves popping out of the soil in a few weeks. You can also try to plant the seeds directly into pots or in the ground. Or you can let the seeds dry over the winter and put them into the refrigerator 3 months before the frost usually leaves.
If you do manage to succeed in starting apple trees from seed don’t forget to protect them from critters. Rabbits and deer like to eat fruit trees, especially young tender ones. Put up some kind of fence for rabbits and use other defenses against deer etc.
Growing apple trees from commercially grown seeds isn’t really a bad thing. It would make a great project if you are interested in seeing what kind of apples you will get. Another reason to start apples from seed would be for a science fair project and experiment to get the best method.
