North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

["Stephen Sadler" <Docshiva@Docshiva.org>]

Not just the East; most places, most apples will pollinate most others...
you can see that on the pollination charts - many open boxes for
pollination-compatible varieties, and a few marked 'X' for triploids, poor
pollinators, and the rare pair of apples that are just out of sync.

I've never had apple pollination problems, nor seen it, even with one tree -
not in any area where apples are commonly and fairly densely grown.

Plums are another matter; I've had some with good pollinators nearby which
become so exuberant with fruit that the fruit color dominates the tree, and
suddenly midsummer the trees are autumnal in yellow or purple.  Then there's
the plum on this new property - it picked a day to flower (seemed 10
minutes), and as no other local plums picked that particular day, and the
bees were cold and sleepy, this tree may never fruit.  I had another yard
with many densely cropping European plums, but the lone Japanese plum
produced one fruit in ten years...

Stephen Sadler, Ph.D.
USDA 9, AHS heat zone 8, 
Sacramento CA - Mediterranean climate

-----Original Message-----
From: nafex-bounces@lists.ibiblio.org
[mailto:nafex-bounces@lists.ibiblio.org] On Behalf Of list@ginda.us
Sent: Tuesday, April 12, 2005 4:06 AM
To: North American Fruit Explorers
Subject: Re: [NAFEX] Apple pollination


On Apr 12, 2005, at 12:16 AM, derry and bill wrote:
>
> I have the feeling that matching bloomtimes is not as important in the 
> East as in
> the West. I've heard that the East warms up quickly and all the apples 
> come into
> bloom at approximately the same time.
>

I think this is true.  I live in Massachusetts, and as far as I can 
tell, everything apple blooms the same week.  I suppose you might have 
trouble if you had only two trees, a very early one and a very late 
one, but if you have one good, fertile midseason bloomer, I think 
everything else would be covered.

Dick is in zone 3, MN, so maybe more important than bloom time charts, 
he needs a second good cold-hardy cultivar.  Maybe a hardy ornamental 
crab would be a good choice, if he doesn't need another eating apple.  
Some of the crabs are very hardy and have long bloom time.  Or maybe he 
should give Honeycrisp a try.  (Although I'm sure he can buy that, or 
will be able to soon.  Some of us try to grow stuff that's hard to get 
retail.)

Ginda