Rob Lloyd, age 7, of Pocatello, Idaho, for his question:
DO APPLE TREES GROW FROM SEEDS?
If you planted a seed from an apple under satisfactory conditions, eventually you would have a growing tree. And after a number of years, the seedling tree would bear apples. But this isn't the way most apple trees are developed because apples grown from seedling trees will generally be smaller and poorer than the apples from which the seed was taken.
Today, new apple trees are usually grown from buds. These buds are cut from a healthy apple tree which bears plenty of good apples of the kind wanted. The buds are made to grow on strong roots of seedling apple trees by a process called budding.
Budding is a type of grafting. Apples that come from a budded tree will be just like the apples from which the twigs were cut. This process makes it possible for the fruit grower to have as many trees as he wishes, all bearing the same variety of apples.
Sometimes, however, an apple tree grown from a seed is better than the parent tree. Such a superior seedling may become the parent tree for a valuable new variety. The Delicious and other famous types of apples started this way.
When a fruit grower starts a new apple orchard, he usually plants his budded trees in rows from 20 to 30 feet apart each way. This type of spacing allows room to spray and cultivate the orchards, and to harvest the fruit conveniently. Apple trees that are taken care of properly will bear good crops for 30 years or more.
The principal cultivated fruit of Canada is the apple. It is grown in all of the Canadian provinces, with the largest crops coming from British Columbia, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Ontario and Quebec. More than 20 million bushels of apples are produced in Canada yearly.
In the United States, Idaho, Oregon and Washington lead the nation, since the Pacific Northwest seems to offer ideal apple growing conditions. Other important apple producing states include Michigan, New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia, West Virginia and California.
People in ancient Rome enjoyed apples and they took cultivated trees with them into England when they conquered that country. Apple growing soon became popular in England and in many other countries of Europe.
Both the seeds and young apple trees were brought to America from England in 1628. John Endecott, one of the first governors of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, brought the first apple trees to the new world. The cultivated varieties of apples gradually spread westward.
There are nearly 7,500 kinds of apples grown in the world today, with more than 2,500 varieties found in the United States and Canada. Most of these are found in home gardens.
But 95 percent of the apples produced in the United States and Canada today come from only 18 varieties. Growers find these 18 types produce the best apples and those most liked by the public.