> I found an italian plum tree growing near my house that I picked clean and saved hundreds of pits from last year.
Don't all plum trees need to be grafted? I was fairly sure that planting most fruit trees including plums from seeds would mostly result in small sour fruits (and in the case of wild plums from my childhood: almost thorny branches)?
I am quite hesitant to ask since you seem to be quite into this and I only have some superficial knowledge about fruit farming but then again we are here to learn aren't we :-)
In general, you should not expect that growing a fruit seed will yield a plant with similar fruits (if it will grow at all): Most of the fruits we enjoy are carefully bred for good sugar/acid balance, and offspring will mostly be quite different.
In addition, most fruit trees are grafted onto stems of other varieties to get better root characteristics.
The nicest counterexample I know of is the danish apple "Filippa", which is a rather acidic apple that stores well (I usually eat my last Filippas early March): This variety can grow from seed and be left on its own root.
You are correct. Most fruit trees are produced vegatatively by grafting from a proven cultivar.
The naturally pollinated ovule of each resultant seed will inherit characteristics of both parents thus giving a practically certain likelihood of an inedible/undesirable fruit.
I also have only superficial knowledge, but I think you would have to first obtain the "wild" version from the pits, and then graft it to produce edible fruit.
Don't all plum trees need to be grafted? I was fairly sure that planting most fruit trees including plums from seeds would mostly result in small sour fruits (and in the case of wild plums from my childhood: almost thorny branches)?
I am quite hesitant to ask since you seem to be quite into this and I only have some superficial knowledge about fruit farming but then again we are here to learn aren't we :-)