Granny Smith Apple trees

[Suess]

Is it true that they have to be grafted?
In a hopefully, garden greenhorn decision I planted some seeds I got from an apple. I have little baby trees starting and seemingly doing well. But I was told that they have to be grafted.

 

[OaklandCityFarmer]

I have grown a few apple trees from seed before that have perform up to par for a backyard orchard even though not as good as trees we've purchased grafted. My grandmother on the other hand randomly throws seeds from fruits she eats and trees sprout all over her property. And then they actually produce a few years later. True story.

Either way, they do take a bit longer to actually produce fruits (up to 4-5 years). If this isn't a problem for you then it shouldn't be an issue. You can also get young grafted trees for relatively low prices from most reputable catalogs or good garden centers.

 

[patandchickens]

Two disadvantages to growing apples from seed: 1) they won't be on dwarfing rootstock, so will grow as tall as your house at which point it gets real hard to harvest most of the apples or keep the tree producing as well as it could; and 2) they will not be genetically Granny Smiths, they will be "seedling of", which means that it is a bit of a turkey shoot what you get. Probably something edible, but you'll get to be surprised as to what exactly it's like

Still, if you have the space, why not

Have fun,

Pat