i was wondering if i was to plant an apple pip would i get an apple tree??? i suppose it would take years to grow into a tree but i was just wondering ::) ::) please don't laugh only i was eating one earlier and thought i wonder.......
we did it when our son was born, made quite a tree in 16 years, fruit was lousy and it got a disease and rotted ;D
interesting experiment though :)
It works, but it's pot luck what you end up with. A lot of traditional varieties started off in exactly this way, but the result, after a good many years unless you bud it onto a dwarfing rootstock, may not be worth having. Bramleys, for instance, started with a pip planted by a Mary Ann Brailsford in Southwell, Nottinghamshire. The house was subsequently bought by a Matthew Bramley, and it was propagated by Messrs. Merryweather. They named it after Mr. Bramley, sold it commercially, and it's still all over the place.
You have to kiss a lot of frogs to get a prince though! The best you could probably hope for is a decent crab apple.
When people are trying for new dahlia varieties from seed they reckon on a sucess rate of less than 1%.