Projek Pokok Epal / Apple tree project Malaysia

It crossed my mind to try planting non tropics trees in my homeplace ever since im back to Ipoh from abroad. that was 2009. so i did with some strawberries (from ireland - successfully bear fruits), cranberries (from ireland, died) and a small apple trees( from ireland, also dead as soon i plant it at home). for now, i have strawberries in bangi, malberries at home and grapes at home and my mums home. all grown well and fruiting seasonally

These are some of the grapes. Not so much to eat but satisfying enough


It took about 3 years to establish and finally fruit endlessly

It then took at least 3 months to be in this colours

Over time the fruit is bigger n bigger, and so does the stalk numbers n fruits per stalk

It crossed my mind from time to time to try on apple again. Few times I kept the seeds and plant them - nothing happened.

Then I visited nurseries nearby KL n Ipoh. None have them. Even in MAHA I didn't find them. So I didn't proceed, especially while I'm busy working

The ideas spark again as I moved in to new house, loads of empty land and so the possibilities of planting something on it. So I did my internet search. Learned that actually to make the seed germinate, it has to go through wintering. So to mimick it one need only a wet tissue, few bucks to buy an apple and save the seeds and keep them in locked container in a fridge ( without a container, fridge will eventually made the tissue dry). 

So on end of April 2014, I finally made it into serious consideration. 

I went to Tesco, get myself a Fuji apple. I guest I'm just lucky. The Fuji that I took actually have 1 seed already germinated. I kept it in a container with wet tissue overnight and planted them

This is how it looked like on may 1 2014 and few days later.

So far I have royal gala, envy, Fuji, braeburn, red delicious, granny smith, Rome, honeycrisp, pink lady, rose, cameo, and few more others. All mixed up. Wasn't expecting it to grow well as I anticipated. As for now I have at least 60 apple trees, with 3 of them planted on the ground. Tallest was my original Fuji up there, with about 2 metre tall in 8months.

Some facts

1. Apple seed is heterogenous, so it is not true to its original parent. If you have red delicious apple, chances that you would get an apple from its seed to taste the same will be pretty slim. So the tree can be a fast grower, or slow grower, producing fruit or none, a lot or few, and tasty or just not worth eating

2. You need a pollinator. Like Fuji need braeburn or Rome to pollinate. It can self pollinate but the fruit will not be as many. Crabapple is a universal pollinator. In term of Malaysia of course its a big issue. Type of pollinator is essentially due to different apple flowered at different time. But I assume 2 seeds will produce 2 different apple so it worth the try

3. It took at least 4 years to bear fruit

4. It needs some winter and other season to trigger flowering. But I have seen few blogs of other Malaysian apple owner successfully produce

Being over passionate left me with about 50 small apple trees. Still finding a way how to plant all of them. 

Few problems encountered so far; 1. Aphid. Horrible at suckingvthe new shoots and disfiguring the trees. However once the tree gets bigger, it become lesser issue. The tree can hold onto it. Plus aphid predators will come and make your apple tree their home. I got a praying mantis 24h on the job on 1 of the tree. 2. Grasshopper. Maybe apple tree itself is yummy. But you would notice soon ever bettle n caterpillar pay the tree a visit. 3. Sunlight but not too much sunlight. But it will get better when the sun passed. 4. Fertiliser. So far all my grapes, strawberry, and apple tree hates them. 

Now the question is... Is it really worth it? To

care a tree that unlikely to fruit. Honestly I don't think so too. Especially both Bangi n Ipoh is a super hot area to live at. However knowing that how it is a heterogenous plant, no one would really know which seed is the jackpot. Perhaps one of them could be genetically ready to adapt and fruitfully pay me back