There are five seed pockets, with two possible seeds in each, making ten possible. Count only fully developed seeds. Do not count obviously withered, or poorly developed seeds. Our checks of many bag apples show that many average three to four seeds per apple. Seed counts are an important management tool for apple growers to evaluate sucess of pollination.
Some apple varieties are difficult to pollinate.
Red Delicious is famous for being hard to pollinate, but seed counts on Empire suggest that this apple's sizing problems may well be due to need for more effective pollination, like it's Delicious parent. Each block and variety should be evaluated by seed counts made at harvest time, with records kept and compared to placement, quantity of hives, hive strength, etc, to aid in decisions for the following season's pollination management. It suprises me how many growers do not know this simple and basic tool for pollination evaluation. Return to home page .