Arizona apple season is in its final stretch. Down in Willcox, Apple Annie's Orchard lists pick-your-own apples from August through October, with Pink Lady, one of the last varieties of the year, starting in mid-October. If your family made the drive this fall, you probably came home with a bag of apples and a question from the back seat: could we grow one of these at home?
Here's the surprising answer, even for families in the low desert: yes, with the right apple. The University of Arizona Cooperative Extension's guide to deciduous fruit for the low desert explains that apple trees need a certain number of chill hours, hours of cool winter weather, before they bloom. Low-desert Arizona averages only about 300 to 400 chill hours a year, so the guide points growers toward low-chill apples like Anna (about 200 hours) and Golden Dorsett and Ein Shemer (about 100 hours each).
Even better for a homeschool: the guide suggests counting chill hours starting Nov. 1. That gives your kids a real, season-long data project that starts in about a week, and a reason to root an apple twig of their own right now.
What your kids will learn
Grades K–5
- That some plants can grow from a piece of a parent plant, not only from seeds
- How to find the nodes and buds on a cutting
- What a cutting needs to grow roots: moisture, warmth and time
- Reading a thermometer and keeping a simple weather chart
Grades 6–12
- Sexual (seed) versus asexual (cutting) reproduction in plants
- How plant hormones called auxins trigger root formation
- Why orchards propagate apples by cloning and grafting instead of planting seeds
- Collecting temperature data, calculating chill hours and graphing results
This week's activity: Become a chill-hour scientist
All you need is a notebook, a pencil and either an outdoor thermometer or a weather app with hourly temperatures.
- Learn the rule. One chill hour is one hour when the temperature is between 32°F and 45°F. Have kids write that at the top of a page.
- Make a prediction. Ask: "How many chill hours will our yard get between Nov. 1 and Feb. 15?" Write down a guess, and compare it with the 300 to 400 hours the extension guide gives as the low-desert average.
- Collect data every morning. Starting Nov. 1, check the overnight hourly temperatures and count how many hours fell between 32°F and 45°F. Younger kids can simply mark "chilly night" or "warm night" on a calendar.
- Keep a running total. Add each day's hours to a chart. Older kids can graph the total week by week.
- Compare with the apples. Draw finish lines at 100 hours (Golden Dorsett and Ein Shemer) and 200 hours (Anna). Predict which apple would get enough chill in your yard first.
- Think beyond your backyard. Families in Arizona's high country, like the Willcox, Prescott or Flagstaff areas, will end up with very different totals than Phoenix or Tucson. Ask kids why elevation changes the answer.
Add the living part of the experiment. Chill hours explain when apple trees bloom. A cutting shows kids how orchards make new apple trees in the first place. Our Plant Propagation Science Kit – Root an Apple Cutting is one of our best sellers, and it lets kids try it themselves.
- In the box: 1 fresh apple cutting (scion wood) harvested during the current season with several growth nodes, a rooting hormone packet, a moisture wrap for transport and printed rooting instructions
- Curriculum: 4 lessons for Grades K–5 or 5 lessons for Grades 6–12 (choose at checkout), emailed after purchase
- Worksheets: a cutting diagram to label, a weekly observation log for moisture, temperature and light, and a reflection sheet (K–5) or lab report template (6–12)
You'll want a small pot and some potting mix at home, and an adult should handle the rooting hormone packet (garden gloves are a good idea). Rooting a fruit-tree cutting is a real experiment, and results vary with conditions. Figuring out why is part of the lesson, and it pairs naturally with the temperature log your kids are already keeping.
Want to compare two kinds of fruit trees? The same extension guide lists Fuyu persimmons as a good low-desert fruit, and our Persimmon Tree Cutting Rooting Science Kit includes a cutting about 4 inches long, rooting powder, step-by-step instructions and curriculum. Root an apple and a persimmon side by side and see which one wakes up first.
Join the growing community
Every kit comes with an invitation to Aardvark's Seed Planting For Little Hands, our private group for families using our kits. Share your chill-hour totals, post photos of new buds and compare notes with young growers across Arizona, from the Valley to the high country, plus families in Arkansas and West Virginia, where winters bring far more chill. It's a fun way to see how climate changes the same experiment.
Start your apple science this week
- Plant Propagation Science Kit – Root an Apple Cutting, with Curriculum & Worksheets: $29.99
- Persimmon Tree Cutting Rooting Science Kit – Grow a Persimmon Tree from a Cutting, with Curriculum & Worksheets: $19.00 (or $29.00 with 2 pots, an extra cutting and 2 growing mediums)
Get the Apple Cutting Science Kit
Sources: Apple Annie's Orchard, Willcox, "Orchards & Fruit"; University of Arizona Cooperative Extension, "Deciduous Fruit and Nuts for the Low Desert" (AZ1269).
