Updates: Loquats, Pears, Apples

We have good news on 2 of the plants and bad news on one of them.


Apples
I'll save the best for last so I'm starting off with the bad news, we have to redo all our apple plants. This only applies to plants, not seeds. Our Granny Smith seeds are still in the picture. One by one they just started dying. We think they might have died from a combination of root rot and fungus. Apparently living in the greenhouse was the perfect place for fungus to grow and we forgot to give them their weekly spray of fungicide.

Pears
Learning our lesson from the apples, we decided not to give the pears the greenhouse, and they are doing quite well. So far, 5 out of the 6 plants have sprouted.





Loquats
2 of the 6 loquat pits have sprouted. You can also see roots at the bottom of the clear container so more to come soon. So far what I have seen from the loquats are that they are slow growers.

Granny Smith Apple Time

We have a total of 13 Granny Smith apple seeds (not including the already sprouted one) and today we starting the whole planting process. Just like with the previous 2 seeds we placed them in a folded moist paper towel and placed them in a plastic bag. Since we got such a high germination rate with the Gala apples in room temperature, we're going to leave the seeds at room temperature. The Gala apples started sprouted in a week so it shouldn't take that long for the Granny Smith.
As for the Granny Smith apple seed that was already sprouted, it is doing quite well. We'll have updated photos up soon.
Something I have noticed so far with all our apples. They have all gone through the stratification process. Maybe not directly as seeds but definately as the apple. When we bring the apples home they go straight into the fridge. So in a few months Trevor and I will be trying a different experiment, "Is Stratification Absolutely Necessary For Apples?" In August or September we will be going to a nearby apple farm and picking apples directly from the tree. We are going to make sure they don't get refridgerated.

Update: Apples and Grapefruit

Gala Apples
2 of the remaining Gala apple seeds are growing very nicely. They'll be planted soon.



Gala apple seeds germinating

Granny Smith
Well that Granny Smith seed that was starting to germinate within the apple has now started it's leaves.


Granny Smith Apple Plant

Grapefruit
Due to a really bad mold problem we had to throw away the grapefruit seeds in the paper towel. One no skin seed germinated though. The seed had seveal pieces and each seed sprouted a root.
On the otherhand, last week one of the no skin seeds in the pot germinated. A few days ago a skin one did too.


Left: No Skin Right:Skin

Growing Granny Smith Apples From Seed

We're in the process of getting Granny Smith apple seeds when we found this:


Sprouted Granny Smith Apple Seed

Almost like the one we found in the Fuji apple. We currently don't have enough seeds to start planting but we have already planted this one and hopefully in the next few days it will germinate.