Today was mostly clear and above freezing, a perfect day for Cammy to continue pruning some of our oldest trees. There’s brush everywhere. It was also a good day to plant apple seeds. The seeds have been in stratification for exactly three months, and Skylar planted 197 seeds, not exactly a huge breeding project, but still that’s a lot of potential trees. Some of the seeds were showing their radical—the tiny white “sprout” that first emerges from the seed. Others were showing nothing but are probably about to sprout out any day now.

43 of the seeds were from our first effort at hand pollination, where we know both parents. Last May Cammy and I did some of the crosses, and Skylar and I did the rest. All have Frostbite (MN 447) as one parent. We used three male pollen parents: Black Oxford, Gray Pearmain and Westfield-Seek-No-Further. Stay-tuned for more developments. We should have our first fruit in… “a few” years!