Hi. I'm a new member in Salt Lake City, Utah. My husband rescued several trees from an old apple orchard at his ex-girlfriend's place that was being razed for a new road. These trees came from seedlings, and after growing in our garden for about twelve years, one is an excellent, consistent bearer with delicious apples, another gave great early golden apples last year, but bore only a few on the high tips this year, and a couple of the others have given only 1 or 2 fruits! Unfortunately, the one large tree that gave one large delicious apple this year is one that has suckered a lot, and my husband propagated it. We would like to register the two varieties, learn how to get the golden one to bear more, and are thinking of grafting onto the rootstock of the trees that are unlikely to bear much fruit. How do I register? Any other suggestions? P.S. I would like to sell fruit from the excellent tree, therefore I think I need a name for it!
I think you would want others to taste your apples and agree that they are some value. Lots of seedling trees produce apples that are OK for juicing or home usage. Is there a local orchard group you could let other apple inclinded folks try them and say, 'Yes these are great apples'
In terms of trying to get the trees on the market commerically, there needs to be quite a bit known about the apples. Will the suckers bear true to the parent tree? Bu t more importantly, how to they react to grafting, budding and the different rootstocks? What faults does the apple have (tree form, disease resistance, cold resistance, yeilds)? What addvantages does it have (flavor, riping date, storage length)?
You might end up bugging a ag. research college for help with field trial to see what the apples really do. I think the PRI apple research co-op program is still functioning.
Larry Sagers is in Salt Lake. He is a (former?) Utah State Extension specialist. He taught me "master gardening" in Utah and is on KSL mornings if you want your question to be made public and on the air.
http://www.ksl.com/?nid=183
But, even though your odds of patenting this tree are remote, it might be best to be somewhat discrete and not go "on-air". If you can locate Larry at his office by phone, perhaps, and chat with him he could tell you the story of the Provo, Utah man who did indeed find a seedling apple tree that was desired by Starks brothers.....as I recall....I think he would know the full story.
Another possibility is to go to the Utah State Horticultural Convention this winter. I could tell you a few people to visit if you go there. This is usually in Provo, Utah in January. Adrian Hinton used to be the extension agent there. 801-851-8460 With budget cuts, I am not sure who is there and who isn't.
Even if you have a superior tree, there are so many hurdles to go through after that....but don't let me discourage you....the fun is in the process.....and your good tree sounds like worth grafting and preserving.
I am curious. If these are old trees, how do you know for certain that they are from seedlings? They might just be old varieties.
I bought a place with some very old apple trees, some of them easily over 100 years old, but I was able to locate some very senior citizen ex-owners and they could remember the names of a couple of the varieties and knew that their parents and grandparents had planted the trees as known varieties. One of the old trees was even a multi-graft.
None of those trees were worth reproducing, although a couple of them were good eating apples.
If you have real proof that they are seedling trees, and they are really superior apples, I sure hope that you can get them patented and out on the market.
My very limited knowledge of the US government tells me that your best bet is to simply go to the government printing office (on line) and get the forms you need and fill them out and send them in.
Some very good apples have come from seedling trees. Best luck to you.
You say ‘the trees came from seedlings’ from an old orchard? So they were smallish trees, not planted by anyone but sprang up from ‘seed?’
If so, they’d be on ‘their own roots,’ thus any of their root-suckers would be of the same variety and should also (eventually) produce the exact same fruit if transplanted.
As far as grafting; you’d like to graft to the seedling trees that aren’t producing much fruit by placing on the variety you like best? That’s possible, it’s called ‘top working’ and there are multiple grafts that can accomplish that.
I suggest, if you’d like to propitiate the trees, to graft them to known rootstock, available by mail order. You’d end up with one foot trees, but they’d be on roots far more likely to last than seedling stock…
As for ‘registering,’ please keep us posted… I’ve not recently heard the process … but don’t get your hopes up on a commercial application… it’s said only one in six-thousand apples are ‘superior’ to their parents. But you could start your own custom orchard, letting buyers know ‘they’re unique!’
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