Growing Red Apples In The Tropics

[Abe40]

Please can anyone explain why red apples don't do well in the tropics. A few years ago, I planted some Red Apple seedlings in my garden. When they matured, instead of producing juicy big Red Apples, all I got were tiny ones. What happened?

[Turtle]

Please can anyone explain why red apples don't do well in the tropics. A few years ago, I planted some Red Apple seedlings in my garden. When they matured, instead of producing juicy big Red Apples, all I got were tiny ones. What happened?

Apples never grow true to seed. From time to time tasty apples come along, but to be reproduced someone has to recognize them and then clone them by grafting.

 

...In the wild, apples grow readily from seeds. However, like most perennial fruits, apples are ordinarily propagated asexually by grafting. This is because seedling apples are an example of "extreme heterozygotes", in that rather than inheriting DNA from their parents to create a new apple with those characteristics, they are instead significantly different from their parents.[42] Triploid varieties have an additional reproductive barrier in that 3 sets of chromosomes cannot be divided evenly during meiosis, yielding unequal segregation of the chromosomes (aneuploids). Even in the case when a triploid plant can produce a seed (apples are an example), it occurs infrequently, and seedlings rarely survive.[43]

 

Because apples do not breed true when planted as seeds, grafting is generally used to produce new apple trees. The rootstock used for the bottom of the graft can be selected to produce trees of a large variety of sizes, as well as changing the winter hardiness, insect and disease resistance, and soil preference of the resulting tree. ...

source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple

[SaxonViolence]

While all the stuff about grafting is true,it is also true that apples don't thrive in the tropics.

 

My father once told me that if you're far enough South that Oranges will grow—like Southern Florida or California—then it is too far south for Apples to thrive.

 

Ragnar Benson recounts a story about a huge apple tree in the back yard of what had been a leper clinic. During a revolution, it became a military headquarters and he was stationed there. He said that it had huge numbers of rather sour apples only a bit bigger than golf balls.

 

He laid it down to not pruning the tree and then not knocking some of the more stunted fruit off early on so that the tree could focus on those that were left. 

 

The climate and the Lack of a graft might have also been problems.

 

It would be interesting to see what might happen if you could get a pre-grafted sapling or two sent to you.

 

 

Saxon Violence

[Abe40]

Dear Turtle and SaxonViolence, thank you both for the enlightenment. It means then that I have to get some pre-grafted saplings, and plant them and hopefully in a few years harvest some real juicy apples. 

[Turtle]

Dear Turtle and SaxonViolence, thank you both for the enlightenment. It means then that I have to get some pre-grafted saplings, and plant them and hopefully in a few years harvest some real juicy apples.

You're welcome. :) Apples do grow in the tropics, but may require some special steps to get them to bloom. Choosing specific varieties may also play a role in your area. I'll give a couple links with brief quotes; the full articles contain further details. By-the-by; where are you located if I may ask? You might do some checking locally to find what works in your location.

 

It is a shock to many people that yes, apples can be grown in a tropical climate, and have been grown by the millions for many years.

 

This goes against the conventional wisdom that apples need between 800-1,000 hours below 7° C. (45° F.) in order to break dormancy and set fruit. But experience has shown that using tropic apple culture methods can fool the tree into thinking that it's chilling-hour needs- whatever they may be- have been satisfied and it will then blossom and fruit. You still must be choosy about which varieties to plant, and the tree will act much different than in a cold climate, but the end result is crisp, juicy, tasty apples. ...

reference: http://www.kuffelcreek.com/tropics.htm

 

 

...Yes. Dormancy is induced by training the branches horizontal and stripping the leaves by hand to coincide with the onset of the dry season, at which time any irrigation is shut off. This causes the trees to blossom in about six to eight weeks. Chemicals like Dormex have been tried, but the hazard and expense they pose makes them unusable in most locations.

 

Apples are grown commercially in Honduras, Nicaragua, the Philippines, Indonesia, and Egypt. Uganda did a large study in the Kabale region in 2005, and published a 70-page paper on it that you can Google. In Asia the main problem the indigenous farmers face is cheap imports from China crowding out their local market, making it impractical to grow apples even if the climate allows it.

 

The main issues facing the tropical farmer has been the short shelf life of the low-chill Anna and Dorsett Golden, plus all the disease that a tropic climate can breed on apples. They've tried growing all the commercially popular apples like Jonathan and Red Delicious, which is silly as the quality would be terrible, as they have found out.

...

reference: http://forums2.gardenweb.com/forums/load/fruit/msg022136365436.html

[Turtle]

While all the stuff about grafting is true,it is also true that apples don't thrive in the tropics.

 

...Saxon Violence

While I'm on a troll roll let me remind you how many ways you are wrong. Your name sucks, your signature sucks, and your posts suck. You don't belong here so go away.

[DFINITLYDISTRUBD]

Please can anyone explain why red apples don't do well in the tropics. A few years ago, I planted some Red Apple seedlings in my garden. When they matured, instead of producing juicy big Red Apples, all I got were tiny ones. What happened?

Define a few years ago.  Even saplings several feet tall before being transplanted take a minimum of three years just to start bearing anything let alone large fruits.  Also what species of apple?

[Abe40]

I collected red apple seedlings from an orchard near a waterfall in 1999. I waited till 2006 before it started fruiting with tiny slightly bitter reddish fruits.

Edited April 20, 2014 by Abe40

[JMJones0424]

I'm struck be the fact that you're either a troll or you don't fully comprehend English.  "Red apple" is not a strain of apple that I recognize.  As Turtle has noted, apples as you buy them from a grocery store are not a true breeding strain.  This means that if you plant the seeds from an apple you have purchased, you should not at all expect to end up with an apple tree that produces similar apples to those that you originally purchased.  The fact that you got the seedlings near an unspecified waterfall is irrelevant.  I'm not at all surprised that the fruit from some random genetics apple tree is both small and bitter.  

 

Apples, like many other commercial fruits and vegetables, are highly hybridized.  There's no reason to expect the fruit of the next generation to be similar to the parent generation.  You need to acquire rooted cuttings or a graft, preferably of a strain that works well in your climate.