North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

[Spidra Webster <spidra@speakeasy.net>]

On Mar 4, 2007, at 4:31 PM, Lon J. Rombough wrote:

Even self-fertile flowers set better with pollinators around to insure that lots of pollen gets on the stigma.  Not every pollen grain is good and having a lot of pollen on the stigma insures that more "virile" grains are in place to do a better job of fertilizing the ovary.  In the UK it is a practice to "tickle" peach blossoms with a feather to insure that lots of pollen reaches the stigma of the flower.

-Lon Rombough

When I was a kid, I knew even less about growing things than I know now.  My parents didn't garden.  But when I first got interested in edible landscaping when I was 11 or so, I just did whatever seemed to me like it would work.  Knowing nothing of the difference between self-pollinating plants and ones that need a pollinator, I just got up on the ladder with one of my watercolor brushes and individually hand pollinated every flower I could get my hands on (this was on a plum, a peach and an apricot).  Seemed to work okay.  I know I plan on using that method again if I have pollination problems.