Apple Trees

ApplesrusTnt

Hi everyone. I recently grew 15 apple seedling. They are approximately 4 feet in height and the stems are almost as thick as a permanent marker. whats the recommended distance for planting these trees 

Pete.8

15ft - 20ft between each tree and about 20ft between each row.

If you grew them from pips they will not be the same as the apples they came from.

pansyface

Yes, if you imagine that the apple that they came from was the sum of two parts, the original flower plus pollen from any number of other trees, you’ll see that your seedlings had one mother but maybe dozens of fathers. So each seedling will grow to look completely different from its siblings. Some may be huge, some spindly, some delicious and some only fit for the birds.

Not only will they look and taste different, they will take different amounts of time to reach fruiting age, but it’s a fair bet that you will have to wait maybe ten years or more before you see what the fruits are like.

In order to sidestep this long and maybe unproductive wait, you could buy 15 dwarf rootstock plants and get a local person to graft each seedling’s twigs onto a different one. Not only will the dwarf rootstocks be earlier to produce flowers and fruit they will have the advantage of taking up a lot less room, maybe only a couple of metres spacing. 

Of course, you first need to spend money on an unknown outcome in terms of fruit quality, but you would also need to find a person who knows how to graft trees. Personally, I wouldn’t waste your time trying to do it yourself as it’s very hit and miss when tried by an amateur.

Dovefromabove

However, if I had several acres of land, a 'wild orchard' of such trees would be an interesting project for wildlife ... as long as you're not hoping to get a good crop of apples in a relatively few number of years.  

Papi Jo

For the OP and any apple-tree lovers I recommend a good read: At the Edge of the Orchard by Tracy Chevalier. I actually bought a copy as a present for my local (bio) apple grower!