Have you had much pollination?

[chris]

I've 3 (maybe 4, not sure - lost the label ) apple trees, a cherry, plum and a pear. As it was so wet, with constant heavy rain during the flowering time here I've had zero apples be pollinated, a handful of cherries, and 1 maybe 2 pears.

Have you had much luck this year?

[Peas'n'Kews]

Very tempted to say "oooo err missus".

But seriously, we have baby plums and quinces growing, but no pears. Haven't noticed any apples yet.....

[rustylady]

My apple blossom's only been open a couple of weeks so it's too early to tell yet, but I don't seem to have many plums The gooseberries at the lottie have set well, and the redcurrants in the back garden have quite a lot of fruit forming.

[donnakebab]

Maybe they just aren't showing yet. I have some tiny pears and some even tinier round bits where the apple blossom was so I'm guessing in time that will be fruit. I must say that the blossom appeared after we had the warm spell earlier in the year and then we had the horrible cold, wet weather and I kept wrapping them up with fleece and only uncovering when there was no frost forecast. I was worried that the pollination rate would be low but they are only young trees (this will be their first cropping year) and so I'm not expecting a huge crop. Nothing showing on my plum yet.

I've been wondering if I should be watering them in this dry spell but from what I've read on this forum they do better if they are stressed. I watered them last year because they were only planted in the Autumn of 2010 and I didn't let them fruit, as in I pinched the blossom off so they had a chance to establish roots.

They are on my allotment so it's a very open and exposed site so that will make a difference. Also we have 2 beehives on our site.

[donnakebab]

Very tempted to say "oooo err missus".

Te he! I was too but I decided to act my age. Not like when we are on that other thread.

[veggiechicken]

Have you had much luck this year?

No Chris, not for many a long year
As for the fruit, a quick reccy round the garden:-
Fruit on cherries, rasp, goose, logan, worcester, blue and josta berries, red & black currants. Figs.
Very little on pear and plum (but they're quite young), too soon to tell with apples.
So Pears, seem to be the losers this year.

[Bigmallly]

Have got about a dozen baby plums (1st years fruiting), loads of goosegogs, Boatloads o' Blueberries, Apple, Cherry & Peach - Zilch. (1st year planting).

[FB.]

Pollination here seems normal, despite it being the wettest, coldest, least-sunshine spring in this area for over a century.
Didn't see many bees, either. Just a few bumblebees and some mason bees.
But it is said that a bumblebee or mason bee, due to their clumsy and chaotic behaviour (scattering pollen all over the place and all over themselves and harvesting from multiple different plants for one pollen load in order to collect all the nutrients they need), do as much pollination as several honey bees, which are so clinically precise (one honey bee often harvests from one plant only in a day and they don't waste or scatter much while harvesting).

.

[Tam]

I have been surprised by the successful pollination rate of the apple trees this year.
In the warm March weather there were quite a number of bees about (mostly bumbles,but
a few of the wild black honeybees). After the very cold spell there was quite a diminishing of numbers; in fact, they almost completely disappeared. They are improving in numbers and I love watching them on the blossom. Most of the trees have fruit set, but some, like Pendu Plat, are just starting to open their blossom. I am in the Scottish borders.

[sugar]

I apply the 'safety in numbers' strategy (15 apple trees in the garden), with some very good pollinators. so every tree that blossom'd is wearing apples. I will now cut them off (trees are still to young). I've a problem on pollination of some red currants (ao Rotet), because of the cold an wet weather during blossom

[FB.]

I apply the 'safety in numbers' strategy (15 apple trees in the garden), with some very good pollinators. so every tree that blossom'd is wearing apples. I will now cut them off (trees are still to young). I've a problem on pollination of some red currants (ao Rotet), because of the cold an wet weather during blossom

Yes, I have a number of trees, in the hope that at least some will crop well no matter what the weather does. I have a handful which are good pollinators - such as Beauty of Bath, Spartan and Worcester Pearmain, Discovery and Golden Delicious (some are trees, some are a bush).

However, just because a variety is a "good pollinator" does not mean that it will pollinate every variety.

Varieties which are related tend to be only moderate pollinators of each other at best - and sometimes will not cross-pollinate well at all (such as Cox's x Kidd's Orange Red).

I've mentioned it before, but it won't hurt to repeat it.
Fruit trees (apple, pear, cherry etc) use a self-recognition system to identify and destroy their own pollen if it tries to fertilise its own flowers. This is a natural prevention of inbreeding.
It generally works on each variety having two "incompatibilty" alleles (genes) - one inherited from each parent.
An example would be the variety Discovery (carries alleles 1 & 24).
Allele 1 was inherted from its Beauty of Bath "father" (it carries 1 & 4) and allele 24 was inherited from its Worcester Pearmain "mother" (it carries 2 & 24).
So it can be seen that 1&4 is fully compatible with 2&24 and is why Beauty of Bath and Worcester were often grown together in the past.
But if Discovery (considered to be a good pollinator) was crossed with Worcester Pearmain, the Worcester would recognise the "24" allele on Discovery's pollen, and assume that it was its own pollen trying to inbreed.
In fact, since Discovery is the offspring of Worcester, it would be a mechanism to reduce the chance of inbreeding.

The reason behind cherry "incompatibility groups" is because cherries have been very inbred in the past, so that there are only a few family blood lines (which are incompatible with others in the same family group).
Modern pears also have the same problems where certain family lines are very incompatible.

Here are some apple incompatibilty alleles carried by certain widely available varieties of apple. A good pollinator for a certain variety would be one which is diploid, and which has a completely difference allele set.
It becomes immediately apparent the prevalence of alleles 2,3,5 and 9 - from so much inbreeding of the Cox, Golden Delicious, James Grieve and Worcester family lines.


Beauty of Bath: 1 & 4
Belle de Boskoop: 2, 3 & 5 (triploid - no viable pollen)
Blenheim Orange: 1, 3 & 14 (triploid - no viable pollen)
Braeburn: 9 & 24
Bramley: 1, 7 & 19 (triploid - no viable pollen)
Cox: 5 & 9
Discovery: 1 & 24
Ellison's Orange: 1 & 5
Falstaff: 2 & 5
Fiesta: 3 & 5
Gala: 2 & 5
Golden Delicious: 2 & 3
Gravenstein: 4, 13 & 20 (triploid: no viable pollen)
Irish Peach: 1 & 1 (an oddball - has two copies of allele 1)
James Grieve: 5 & 8
Katy: 5 & 24
Kidd's Orange Red: 5 & 9
Laxton's Superb: 5 & 16
Lord Lambourne: 2 & 5
Meridian: 5 & 9
Red Windsor (Alkmene/Early Windsor): 5 & 22
Ribston Pippin: 1, 9 & 21 (triploid: no viable pollen)
Spartan: 9 & 10
Sturmer Pippin: 2 & 24
Tydeman's Early Worcester: 24 & 25
Tydeman's Late Orange: 9 & 16
Worcester Pearmain: 2 & 24
M9 rootstock: 1 & 3
M789 rootstock: 1 & 3
M4 rootstock: 3 & 3
Northern Spy: 1 & 3

The rootstocks are included because many decades ago they were attempted to be crossed with the woolly-aphid-resistant Northern Spy, to produce new rootstocks, but the crosses produced few viable seeds as a result of incompatibilty.

[FB.]

Because of so many varieties sharing incompatibilty (or partial incompatibility) crab apples are now widely used for pollination.
However, for those wishing to plant a few of their own trees' pips in future, the chances are not good of a tasty, decent-sized dessert apple if a crabapple was the father which pollinated a domestic apple mother.
I am also of the belief that fruit quality is better if the pollinator was a domestic apple, since I believe that the genetics of the pips within the growing apple has an influence on how the apple forms.

[sugar]

Yes, I have a number of trees, in the hope that at least some will crop well no matter what the weather does. I have a handful which are good pollinators - such as Beauty of Bath, Spartan and Worcester Pearmain, Discovery and Golden Delicious (some are trees, some are a bush).

However, just because a variety is a "good pollinator" does not mean that it will pollinate every variety.

Varieties which are related tend to be only moderate pollinators of each other at best - and sometimes will not cross-pollinate well at all (such as Cox's x Kidd's Orange Red).

I have 16 apple trees. While most of them are fertile, some are triploid and useless for pollination of other trees. 3 of my apple trees are known as superior pollinators (one early, one intermediate and one late flowers). They cover every single apple tree in my garden. The names are probably useless because names differ between UK and Europe...

[dod]

I have had no fruit set on my plum tree, which I put down to the terrible weather right after it flowered. I have an early apple (St Edmunds Russet?) which was flowering gradually during that bad weather, but it is too early to see whether or not any fruits will set. My other apples have only started flowering recently, so should be fine. Fruits have set OK on some white and black currants, but I am not sure if it will be a bumper crop.

[binley100]

Don't think i'll be having a fully laden plum tree this year ......hardly any blossom.