North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

["William C. Garthright" <billg@inebraska.com>]

> Regarding Asian/American hybrid plums, like the recently discussed 
> 'Superior': I've read that pollination can be problematic with these. 
> Specifically, some say they pollinate each other, while others say that they 
> can only be pollinated by wild plums, and that the people who think their 
> hybrid plums are pollinating each other are being fooled by a wild plum 
> nearby, that's really the one doing the pollinating.


I've heard that, too, but I wonder about it. Of course, my plums are 
very young, and this is the first year I've had fruit (partly because 
everything froze last year). But I've got four Asian/American plums 
planted together, and no wild plums in the immediate vicinity (of 
course, they're common in Nebraska, so they're probably in the 
neighborhood somewhere).

It seemed to me that I had few bees this spring. Even my solitary bees, 
in nesting straws nearby, didn't do very well. So it's hard to imagine 
that there'd be a huge amount of pollination from a distance. My 
Superior plum was a mass of blossoms and set on a huge amount of fruit 
(far too much for the little tree, so I had to thin it greatly). The 
Alderman - planted just 18" away - was also a mass of blossoms, but set 
on very little fruit. The Toka and the Waneta - though a year older than 
the others - had few blossoms and almost no fruit. Why the difference? I 
don't know. But I doubt very much that it had anything to do with 
pollination from any distant wild plum.

Note: I've heard that Toka is a good pollinator, which is one reason I 
planted it. As I say, it had few blooms this year, but there WERE some 
blossoms while the other plums were also blooming.

FYI, I also had lots of blossoms on three young pluots (planted 8' 
apart, on the other side of my yard). I've heard that these are very shy 
bearers, and I didn't see any bees around them at all. I ended up with 
two or three pluots, is all (and only one of those made it to maturity). 
We'll see what happens in future years.

I don't know if any of this info is of value. It's just one year in one 
location, after all. Just thought I'd mention it.

Bill
Lincoln, NE (zone 5)

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