Planting Young Apple Tree Hybrid, Calypso™ x Golden Sentinel. 11.29.21

I wanted to get the apple seedlings into the ground. These are the hybrids I made by crossing the red flesh, red leaf,pink flowered "RedLove™ Calypso™ with the columnar, yellow skin Golden Sentinel™. My hope is a red flesh, red leaf apple tree with columnar growth habit. Golden Sentinel™ has some great flavored, nice size sweet apples as ancestors. Of the three seedlings that resulted, two were red leaf, so probably red flesh if they make apples. Also, the internodes seem close together, which might suggest columnar form, I don't know but I think maybe. Also, there are tiny branches that look like fruiting spurs - a bit much to hope for the first year, but you never know. That also suggests to me possible columnar form. The third had red leaf petioles but green leaves, more vigor, and the little branches are longer, so it probably wont be as red flesh if at all, and probably not columnar. Anyway, I planted the other, shorter red leaf seedling in the garden a while ago, and today planted the shorter one.

I'm impressed by the nice root mass. Not root bound, not winding around, but a lot of stong thick roots. I hosed them off to bare root the tree as much as I could. I don't have a great spot for it in my garden, but as long as it's columnar, the spot where I planted it us OK. Plus it can be moved if needed.

Now it's in the ground, so any freezing shouldn't hurt. Plus, it has a chance to grow more roots with first Spring flush of growth, into the earth. Watering will be much easier, less frequent, than in containers. I may be able to extend irrigation to this one next, even better. One more apple seedling to go.