At Sweet Apple Acres, it is time for the Great Confluence - when nearly all the trees in the orchard are ripe for harvesting. AJ gets her family up bright and earlier and shows how they will split the work, but Granny has already reached out for help from Goldie Delicious. When she arrives, Goldie talks of the Great Seedling, a mythical creature that supposedly appears during the Confluence, and that if one can catch them, the Seedling would grant them with trees that would remain ripe all the time. Apple Bloom gets excited and rushes off to try to set up traps to catch the Great Seedling while the rest of the family turns to harvesting. AJ gets annoyed at Goldie for setting off Apple Bloom on this track, and because Goldie and Granny are spending much of their time reminiscing, AJ and Big Mac realize they will likely need to complete the harvest themselves.
When the next morning comes, Apple Bloom rushes out to check her traps, and finds a strange patterns of apples left on one of the fields, which Apple Bloom takes as a sign of the Great Seedling. Goldie tells Apple Bloom that the patterns are a message from the Great Seedling urging Apple Bloom to step up her efforts. As Apple Bloom rushes off, AJ warns Goldie and Granny that they don't need Apple Bloom distracted now, but both admit they didn't actually set up the apples. AJ then agrees to spend a day with Apple Bloom to set up traps for the Great Seedling, in exchange that she will focus on the harvest the next day. As they work, AJ tries to convince Apple Bloom that the apple patterns may just be accidental but she refuses to believe it. Granny reminds AJ that she had been just as excited about trying to catch the Great Seedling when she was a filly, but in one day she got trapped in her own pit, and was missing for her family for a whole day, which likely tainted her views of the Great Seedling. AJ realizes she should let Apple Bloom have their fun and in turn spends the rest of the day to help trap the farm. When the next morning comes, Apple Bloom finds all their traps were triggered, but no sign of the Seedling, but in place, much larger apple patterns have been left. AJ, realizing these patterns cannot be natural, starts to consider if the Great Seedling is real, and decide to spend another day to help set more traps with Apple Bloom, leaving Big Mac to do most of the harvest.
As Big Mac continues to harvest, he finds parts of the orchard that they haven't marked as completed but bare of apples, and AJ suspects this is yet another sign of the Seedling. After a full day of setting traps, AJ and Apple Bloom camp out to try to get a glimpse of the Great Seedling. Both fall asleep but are woken by rustling below them, and see the silhouette of what they think is the Seedling. They go to approach it but it turns on them, and chases them back to the barn. As they cower in fear, the silhouette comes into the light revealing that it is actually Big Mac, who has been sleepwalking and harvesting due to the excess work. The next morning, AJ explains the situation to everyone, and without the distraction of the Seedling, they quickly finish off the rest of the harvesting in time. Goldie sets off for home, but notices that there's similar patterns of carrots on the neighboring field. AJ and Apple Bloom, knowing that Big Mac had not harvested any carrots, race off to try to set more traps for the Great Seedling.
Tropes:
- An Aesop: You're never too old to have fun.
- Agent Mulder: Goldie Delicious wholeheartedly believes in the Great Seedling, getting angry whenever Applejack dismisses it as a "mare's tale".
- All Work vs. All Play: Applejack is intent on finishing the harvest, and not getting distracted by hunting for the Great Seedling. She changes her tune after being reminded of how much fun it is setting up traps for the mystical creature.
- Arbitrary Skepticism: Played with. In a world where magical creatures exist, why would AJ be so doubtful about the Great Seedling? Probably because of her own disappointing experience as a filly.
- The Bus Came Back:
- Not counting the Equestria Girls shorts, Applejack's dog Winona returns after being absent the past two seasons.
- Goldie Delicious returns for the first time since "Grannies Gone Wild".
- Butt-Monkey: Big Mac. He spends all night before working on logistics for the first day, gets constantly caught by his owns sisters' traps during the daytime, then winds up sleep-harvesting at night while having to do majority of the overall work.
- The Cameo: Bright Mac and Buttercup make brief, nonspeaking appearances in the flashback to Applejack's childhood.
- Continuity Nod: Applejack briefly mentions Braeburn when she wonders who Granny Smith asked for help.
- Crop Circles: The Great Seedling appears to leave intricate patterns of apples in its wake.
- Cynicism Catalyst: Applejack once believed in the Great Seedling as much as Apple Bloom. But after getting caught in one of her own traps and missing out on helping her family with the harvest, she put aside those beliefs out of guilt.
- The Dog Was the Mastermind: Parodied. After Applejack accuses Granny Smith and Goldie Delicious of leaving the apple patterns on the ground, Granny sarcastically suggests that Goldie's cats were the ones who did it.
- Exhausted Eye Bags: Big Mac has these throughout the episode, due to staying up late planning the harvest, and working himself to exhaustion during it.
- Foreshadowing: Big Mac shouldn't have been getting more and more tired with each passing day as a simple redrawing of the map would've taken just a few minutes compared to the burning of the midnight oil the first time. That's because he has been harvesting apples while sleepwalking.
- Freeze-Frame Bonus: During Applejack's flashback to when she failed to catch the Great Seedling herself, Buttercup walks by with baby Apple Bloom in a basket on her back. While this happens fairly quickly, pausing the scene before Buttercup walks off the screen shows that Apple Bloom is sucking on an apple.
- Here We Go Again!: The episode ends with Applejack and Apple Bloom finding an unusual pattern of carrots, and deciding that the Great Seedling is still out there, waiting to be caught.
- Hypocrisy Nod: Granny Smith and Goldie Delicious regularly point out that Applejack once believed in the Great Seedling as much as Apple Bloom (to the point of neglecting her harvesting duties, the very thing she admonishes Apple Bloom for).
- The Marvelous Deer: The supposed Great Seedling that the Apple sisters encounter resembles a large, deer-like figure with tree branches instead of antlers.
- Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane: It's left ambiguous whether the Great Seedling really exists. It mostly seems like it's just a tradition boosted by Goldie's storytelling and Big Mac's fortuitous sleep-harvesting. At the end, something was arranging the carrots in arabesques, even though nobody had worked in the carrot field yet.
- Misblamed: Applejack initially believes Goldie and Granny Smith planted the apple patterns to encourage Apple Bloom's belief in the Great Seedling.
- Orphaned Punchline: Courtesy of Granny Smith.Granny Smith: ...and if you had two o' them, it would've been a "pair o' pears"!
- Our Cryptids Are More Mysterious: The Great Seedling plays the role of a cryptid within the show's world, ticking off most of the category's boxes — mysterious nature, highly elusive and difficult to catch or observe, ambiguously real and prone to causing divisive opinions regarding whether it actually exists or not.
- Outgrown Such Silly Superstitions: Applejack no longer believes in the Great Seedling, considering it a story for foals.
- Pit Trap: While trying to catch the Great Seedling, Applejack and Apple Bloom dig a number of deep pits around the orchard and cover them with leaves; Applejack also did this while trying to catch the seedling in her own youth. This consistently backfires on them; filly Applejack accidentally trapped herself in her own pit, and in the present day the pits only catch the family dog and a sleepwalking Big Macintosh.
- Reasonable Authority Figure: Applejack is at first annoyed by Apple Bloom's hunt for the Great Seedling, but she never chastises or forbids Apple Bloom from doing it, understanding that it means a great deal to the filly even if Applejack thinks it's a waste of time. The furthest she gets is a gentle discouragement, and when Apple Bloom insists on going ahead, Applejack strikes a deal: She will help Apple Bloom set up traps in the evening if Apple Bloom finishes her assigned chores during the day, ensuring everypony is satisfied.
- Red Eyes, Take Warning: When the Great Seedling (actually the Sleepwalking Big Mac) approaches, it has red, glowing eyes.
- Shout-Out:
- The Great Seedling can be seen as an analogue for either the Great Pumpkin, Johnny Appleseed or the Easter Bunny... or maybe a mash-up of all three.
- Older Than Print, the Great Seedling could very well be a representation of Dáinn, Dvalinn, Duneyrr or Duraþrór; the Four Stags in Norse Mythology who eat at the branches of Yggdrasill, and in some versions of the Prose and Poetic Edda are themselves representations of the four seasons.
- The Greet Seedling visually resembles the Pokémon Xerneas, by virtue of being a deerlike creature with branches for antlers.
- Some viewers have also noticed a similarity between The Great Seedling and the Forest Spirit from Princess Mononoke; with the deer-like appearance and magically enhancing the fertility of plants wherever it goes.
- Sibling Rivalry: Applejack and Big Mac briefly get into a contest over how many apples they can knock down at once.
- Sleepwalking: The reason for the "Great Seedling" sightings was Big Mac harvesting apples as he sleepwalked, getting tree branches tangled in his mane in the process.
- Sleepyhead: Staying up late and making an apple-bucking map and schedule has taken a much heavier toll on Big Mac. As a result, he can barely stay awake for the following days. Subverted as the main reason he was tired the following days was due to his sleep-harvesting.
- Stubborn Mule: Applejack once again, as Granny Smith acknowledges.Granny Smith: I swear, sometimes I think she's part mule.
- Tempting Fate: During the Cold Open, Applejack claims that Apple Bloom has outgrown believing in the Great Seedling... only for Apple Bloom to appear, fully equipped to try and catch the creature.
- Written-In Absence: Applejack mentions at the beginning of the episode that the rest of the Mane Six are busy at the School of Friendship, which is why none of them come to help with the harvest.
- "YEAH!" Shot: The episode ends with Applejack and Apple Bloom excited by another mystery involving a trail of carrots, and jumping into the air as the episode ends.
