What fruit trees will grow true to type from seed? (forum)

JohnMc1 starts with ...
Doing some homework for a fruit club up north. They are making a list of fruit trees that grow true to type from seed. If anyone can list any they know of, please note them here and I will pass them on.


Time: 17th February 2014 6:35pm

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About the Author JohnMc1
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Jason says...
How true are they talking?. I've found most things will be more or less similar to their parent/s. Although not many seedlings are true clones (other than some Mangos and Citrus for example). With temperate things like Peaches/Nectarines you almost get an identical fruit to the parent everytime. I think because there's just not much genetic variation in Australia of those species. Even the White sapote seedlings I've grown out are almost the same as their parents.

Time: 17th February 2014 6:41pm

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sternus1 says...
Papaya/pawpaw grow true. Mangoes will, even Poly if you can pick the right shoot.

Rubus has been variable for me. Finger limes do not grow true to type from seed.

Time: 17th February 2014 6:46pm

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About the Author sternus1
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JohnMc1 says...
I think they are looking for true clones eg Kensington pride mango.

Time: 17th February 2014 7:20pm

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gimme says...
Some true enough for me to bother growing from seed:

Poly mangoes
Davidsons plum
Jackfruit
Loquat
Panama berry
Tamarind
Guavas
Grumichama
Jaboticaba
Ice cream bean
Soursop
West Indian
Wampi

Some of them I graft aswell and always aselect primo parentage

Other things fun to grow from seed ice cream bean, drumstick tree, curry tree

Time: 17th February 2014 7:23pm

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About the Author gimme
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gimme says...
This is an interesting reference for those who like to propagate

http://www.crfg.org/tidbits/proptable.html

Time: 17th February 2014 7:27pm

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Mike Tr says...
It would be easier to identify the fruit that are untrue like mono mngoes,most citrus,atemoyas,lychess,rambutan and avocadoes.More are true than rumour would have you believe.

Time: 17th February 2014 8:09pm

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MaryT says...
Most citrus are untrue, Mike?

Time: 17th February 2014 9:11pm

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Mike Tr says...
Mary maybe I should have said many of them. The mutants and bud sports as well as hybrids that haven't stabilised are untrue. Jungle fever runs deep in citrus and they will outcross to any other citrus in the neighbourhood.

Time: 17th February 2014 9:24pm

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MaryT says...
Ummm I worry about my Julie tree (Seville) seedling which is three years old. I also have a couple of bush lemon seedlings that I want to grow into bush lemon trees!

Time: 17th February 2014 9:42pm

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Mike Tr says...
Mary bush lemons stay as bush lemons and I thinks sevilles are pretty true.

Time: 17th February 2014 10:18pm

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MaryT says...
Thanks, Mike. :)

Time: 17th February 2014 10:24pm

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jakfruit etiquette says...
Agree, the reverse list,"not true from seed" is a better starting point.
Most fruit/nut trees going to be true from seed, with some level of normal variation.
Named varieties of a fruit species may not be 100% true from seed to the named variety.
Fruit chararacters+ripening times could shift slightly, even if uncrossed.
Any F1 hybrids,ie stonefruit hybrids + some F1 Carica papaya should not be true.
Any species hybrids, ie Annona X Annona etc may have variable offspring.
Polyembryonic Citrus and Mangoes are clonal, so these the only ?99% true from seed.
Citrus could have it's own topic, some 99%true, some highly variable from seed.


Time: 18th February 2014 12:32am

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JohnMc1 says...
I think it would be easier if I linked them to this thread. All these contributions would be appreciated.

Time: 18th February 2014 7:31am

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MARIANO DE LEONMONTERO. says...
PSIDIUM GUAJAVA

Time: 18th February 2014 12:50pm

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yrt says...
If a great deal of plant breeding has gone into a particular fruit then seed, unless polyembryonic, will not resemble the parent . I read somewhere that, curiously, the inverse can hold true- so much breeding has been done that bad characteristics have been bred out and seed will be different but still v. good. eg citrus ,peaches.

Time: 18th February 2014 5:03pm

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Jason says...
yrt, that's my experience regarding fruits that have a long history of breeding. Current peach varieties must have 10, 20 Elite generations behind them. Honestly you just can't get a bad peach from any seed you'll find in Australia. Given that they fruit in about 3 years from germination and are always a stronger tree from seed. Buying a grafted peach is one of the more silly things you can do.


The only times things may go bad are with fruit that are nearly still in their wild state. Ie Avocados. Most of the cultivars of Avocado are at best 2 generations of selections. Most however are still just selections of wild fruit. Anyway even a wild Avocado has been kind of selected by the Mexicans by chopping down dud trees for some thousands of years.

Time: 18th February 2014 7:28pm

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Original Post was last edited: 18th February 2014 7:27pm

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jakfruit etiquette says...
From about 20 original peach vars, now have about 10 volunteers. Seedlings are generally good, some better. One white peach seedling cames in April 1st, another still green at April 7 never ripens( odd tree now dead)I think original white was early(Dec), now some new white seedlings are ripening Feb 15.
Another freestone seedling has a fault at the core, always decays.
The seasonal ripening range from the original grafted set of 20 has been lost, seedling fruit are good, but ripening times can change.
Grafted trees are predictable in fruit/season, otherwise all fruit comes at once.
Avocadoes? has anyone ever found a bad Avo seedling in Australia( one that was so bad it required an AVO taken out against it ??)Some arent as good as others, but either are the named cultivars.
Most named Avo's in Oz are race hybrids(MexicanXGuatemalan etc)

Otherwise Jason I generally agree, but there are advantages to grafted trees also.

Time: 19th February 2014 5:54am

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Mike Tr says...
I think guatemalans dominate in Australia with WI being uncommon and hass reputely being a mexican but the jury is out on that.I have tried fruit from a few seedlings and they are usually of lower quality,lower oil content and have a bigger seed.Some spherical ones seem to be exceptions and are close to as good as their presumably Redd parent.

Time: 19th February 2014 8:52am

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allybanana says...
I have yet to see a good seedling avocardo on the south coast and there is over a dozen big seedlings around. The trend appears to be after 10 years you get a 8 meter tree and then if you are lucky you get half a dozen fruit the trees dont improve over time. The grafted ones perform well though.

I agree that peach cultivas can produce good seedling, providing they do not have rootstock pollen avalible. Rootstock seedlings are feral around here they grow beside the road and are not that good. Another thing to consider is chill hours, low chill varietes may not produce low chill seedlings.

Time: 19th February 2014 9:41am

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About the Author allybanana
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Rusticular says...
I have a seedling avocado, kept in a pot for about two or three years, then planted out in 2003. It took about another 5 years before it set a huge crop of fruit. In 2009 it set another huge crop, but was obviously suffering from phytophthora.
I started phos acid spray and injections on the tree. The crop in 2010 was smaller, produced fruit, but the tree had lost almost half to phytophthora by this stage. In 2012 I was getting fruit over 800 grams, small cylindrical seed.
The tree appears to be recovering, but I haven't had a crop since, although I believe that is partly due to the unseasonal weather.
I have some low chill dwarf peach seedlings, in pots, which flowered and fruited in their first year. The fruit was very small, and only one or two per plant.
Pictures - Click to enlarge

Picture: 1

Time: 19th February 2014 12:17pm

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About the Author Rusticular
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Rusticular says...
Sorry, got off topic. The misshapen fruit of the seedling seems to indicate the seedling did not grow true to the parent, which has fruit of a balanced shape.

Time: 19th February 2014 1:13pm

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gimme says...
Has anyone grown mono embryonic mangoes to fruiting stage? Will it always be inferior or could it be similar/better? Is it a waste of time completely?

Time: 19th February 2014 10:34pm

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gnome says...
Gimme- et al- there are over 4000 (last book I read) varieties of apple. All grown because someone grew a seedling and was very happy with it. There's a lot of varieties of mango, and of pommelo, avocado, grape, fig and chiku (etc) for the same reason. Nectarines are described as a "sport" of peaches- it's a matter of taste.

The likelihood is (extrapolating from my limited understanding of Mendel's work on plant breeding) that of any four sexually produced plants, one might be better than the parent, two might be about the same, and one might be worse. (That's a lot of mights, so you can quote me- I have nothing to lose here.)

OTOH- the oft-quoted likelihood of a plant never bearing fruit because it was grown from seed and is of a species that doesn't come true to type, is about the same as that of a child being born without a nose, or without legs. It does happen, but you wouldn't want to plan your breeding program on that expectation. Fruit is as fundamental to plants as noses are to mammals.

It is much more likely that someone had to grow something from seed because the named varieties weren't available in their area, and that species just won't produce there, which is why plants weren't available.

Grow seedlings if you have the space. Experiment as much as you can with specific cross-cultivar breeding- that's how superior varieties come into cultivation.

By way of example- my experience with black sapotes is that some seedlings are choclatier and some are creamier- some people prefer choclatey, some prefer creamy- neither is bad.

A seedling grown carefully will have a tap root, which a cutting, layer, marcott or tissue cultured plant will never have.

Remember though, citrus may take many years to bear, and the young plants will be vigourous (eventually too high to harvest easily), thorny and the fruit of juvenile trees will be seedy. Even for fruit which comes true to type (lemons, grapefruit, mandarines, oranges) there is an advantage in using multi-generational clonal material for citrus.

Remember too, that as well as the scion, the rootstock might confer some advantage. Although Poncirus (trifoliata, but monotypic anyway) gives slightly inferior tasting fruit, the tree will generally be smaller, precocious, frost, drought and collar rot resistant.


(Add purple mangosteens to the list of plants which do come true to type from seed - Garcinia mangosta I think- someone can correct if wrong.)

Remember also that polyembryonics can produce sexual offspring if you remove the apomictic shoot, which is usually the biggest one at the seedling stage. You will need to do this if you want to cross-breed polyembyonic plants. (That won't work for mangosteens.)

(Buy a copy of Hartman and Kester- worth every cent.)

Time: 28th February 2014 8:41pm

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ann-maree says...
I was just wondering if seeds of a blood plum will grow into a tree that will produce blood plums?

Time: 23rd August 2016 11:33pm

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Rose3 says...
HI Ann-Maree, I have been looking for a blood plum for years. The kind I remember from the late 60's. Is this the kind of blood plum you mean?
We had success with a nectarine. It grew from a stone very well and fruited so heavily within the 2nd year! We have 2 Apricot trees, the 1st year also grown from stone. Now we need the Blood Plums, they were just so yummy and juicy. We are going to try a peach we like next, we have been saving the stones.


Time: 31st January 2017 12:26am

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SueBee says...
My blood plum (Satsuma) runs true from seed.I just made plum sauce from a seedling this week.
My Nectarines also run true from seed, figs also, and I have several apple and almond seedlings that I have used to graft onto and to give away,but no fruit yet to tell me their stories.

Time: 7th February 2017 11:26am

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phil@tyalgum says...
I have some seeds of Loquat &quote;White Vista&quote; if anyone would like to try them. They are an American variety and my trees are bearing after five years from seed. Bright canary yellow, large sized fruit - extremely juicy. Seed are second generation from the named cultivar but this thread would indicate loquats breed true to type.

Time: 23rd August 2017 9:36pm

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Bendulums says...
Hi Phil,

I would like some of your Loquat seeds if there available.

Time: 12th October 2017 1:26pm

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denise1 says...
When you want to grow seedlings for fruiting, First you need to find a great tasting plant. If that plant however was pollenated from a bad performing plant nearby then it could well be a waste of time. Some people want to grow a shop bought seedling avocado expecting a decent quality crop. Unfortunately quite a few of the pollenater trees in the avo orchards are quite poorer than the ones you eat. In selecting any seeds for growing seedling trees it can be quite important to check the neighbouring area that there are no poor fruiters in the area.

Time: 14th October 2017 10:06am

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About the Author denise1
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Ridiculous name says...
A friend of mine had a Hass avocado seedling. At 6 years old it first fruited, and continued to fruit heavily every year after.

The fruit was huge. Once cut open it was mostly seed, in fact the largest avo seeds I've ever seen. The fruit flesh was stringy and tasted foul. The smell of the flesh was even worse, I would describe the smell as rotten meat... I helped him cut the tree down

Time: 8th September 2018 1:52pm

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Markmelb says...
You should have top worked that Avo with a good scion or 4 ? Such a waste of a rootstock.

Time: 10th September 2018 9:01pm

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Ridiculous name says...
That should normally be a consideration, however I didn’t mention that he also had planted several nursery bought varieties and didn’t want another avocado tree. The space for other trees was more important

Time: 11th September 2018 7:23am

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Luke :) says...
So guava (Psidium Guajava) do well from seed ey??
I could grow alot more varieties!

Time: 13th September 2018 1:47am

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Brenda-ohio says...
Antonovka apples grow true from seed. They are a Russian apple and are the only one I know of that does. Also persimmon and paw paws grow true to seed. Mulberry and service berry, as well as other berries, not trees but still fruit. And nuts grow true.

Time: 26th August 2019 4:42pm

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jakfruit etiquette says...
Brenda-ohio says...persimmon and paw paws grow true to seed.
Are you talking about the American persimmon and American paw paws, which are largely wild plants, with some beter selections ??

Time: 27th August 2019 9:19am

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