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["Hal Love" <lovehd@comcast.net>]

When we moved last year, I found clove currants growing out by our pond. I
smelled them long before I saw them. These were very fragrant, but only set
three small fruits, which were very tasty. This spring, I ordered a Crandall
clove currant from One Green World. It arrived shortly after the fragrant
currant had finished flowering, but I had dried some pollen and kept it in
the refrigerator in the hopes the Crandall would flower later. The Crandall
was just starting to leaf out when I received it, and did produce lots of
flowers a couple of weeks later. The fragrance was very similar to the one
by the pond, but probably 10-100 times less intense. I applied the dried
pollen to one cluster of flowers on the Crandall.

The Crandall has now set lots of fruit, which is not surprising as its
reported to be self-fertile. What is interesting is the fruits from the
cross-pollinated flowers are now 4 times bigger than the ones I did not
pollinate. This would indicate that while Crandall does not need another
pollinator to set fruit, having one around can really make a difference. It
will be interesting to see how the ripe fruits compare.

Hal
zn 6 TN