North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

[Melissa Kacalanos <mijwiz@yahoo.com>]

In general, different species don't pollinate each other. Apricots and Asian 
or American plums could pollinate each other if they bloomed at the same 
time, but apricots generally bloom earlier than plums, so they usually don't 
get an opportunity to pollinate each other.

Plums are complicated, since there are several different Asian and American 
species that generally can all pollinate each other. There are also a lot of 
hybrid cultivars for cold climates that are crosses between Asian and 
American species. However, these hybrids generally can't pollinate anything 
else. It's recommended that you have a pure American plum to pollinate them.

Here's a very interesting article from the University of Saskatchewan on the 
pollination of cold-hardy plums:
http://www.usask.ca/agriculture/plantsci/dom_fruit/articles/plums.doc

Sour cherries are generally self-pollinating. I think sweet cherries don't 
pollinate anything else.

Melissa

--- On Fri, 3/12/10, Dan Nave <nave1@comcast.net> wrote:

> From: Dan Nave <nave1@comcast.net>
> Subject: [NAFEX] Pollinating Prunus
> To: "North American Fruit Explorers" <nafex@lists.ibiblio.org>
> Date: Friday, March 12, 2010, 12:05 AM
> I plan to plant several fruit trees
> of the genus Prunus.  Some are 
> described as being self-pollinating and some self-sterile.
> 
> My question is, can these trees pollinate each other even
> if they are 
> not of the same species (not sure if this is the correct
> term)?  Can an 
> apricot or cherry pollinate a plum, etc?
> 
> Dan
> 
> Minnesota, zone3-4 depending upon how you look at it...
> _______________________________________________