Apple Seedings. 3.12.2021

 It's interesting comparing the seedlings.  All three are from the apple that resulted from Redlove™ Calypso™ X Golden Sentinel™.  (I think the nomenclature is seed parent X pollen parent.  In this case, Calypso™ was the seed parent).  

Seedling #1.  First to germinate.  Leaves with quite a lot of red coloration.  By far the tallest so far.

Seedling #2.  Second to germinate.  Almost as tall as Seedling #1.  Leaves mostly green but with red veins and stem.

Seedling #3.  Quite a bit behind the other two in germinating.  Almost as red as Seedling #1.  Interstems seem much shorter.  Is that because there is more sun now, compared to when Seedling #1 germinated?  Or, is that because Seedling #3 has naturally shorter internodes, as expected for a columnar growth habit?

It's interesting to speculate.  #1 might be taller because of a lighting issue when it started growing beyond the cotyledons.  Being later, #3 may not have had that problem.   In the future, for brevity, I'll refer to these as CalGo#1, CalGo#2, CalGo#3.  These have grown 4 internodes in their first month.  They will be pampered and coddled.  If they can do that for the next 6 months, they could be 24 internodes, which might be enough to know.  If they get some momentum and speed up, maybe they could get up to a graftable size by the end of the year. Wishful thinking.

I'd like to try some more crosses this year, mainly the Redlove™ Era™ X a columnar. Era™ because I think it's sweeter but has as red flesh as Calypso™.  Top choice for columnar would be North Pole, the largest apples, sweetest fruit so far among those in my yard, vs. TastyRed™ which has red skin, reportedly disease resistant, but I haven't tasted them yet.  Alternatively, aim for a sweeter red flesh using Jonagold, my sweetest apple (but is there a problem using a triploid?), Gravenstein (ditto), Beni Shogun Fuji (not doing that well for me and I haven't tasted one, but Fuji are quite sweet).  I probably can't grow them all out, but maybe make the crosses, first priority being red flesh X columnar, then whatever I want to try, see what takes and what grows.  This will depend on multiple things, such as weather, blooming times, and me.