Fruit Trees & Pollination
Your fruit trees need proper pollination to be fruitful, and they have a variety of pollinating needs. In our video on fruit trees, Tricia explains that part of creating a home orchard is planning for the pollination of your trees.
Vocabulary
Pollination
Means moving pollen from the stamens to the stigma of a flower. The pollen can come from the same flower or a different flower.
Pollinizer
The source of the pollen (a fruit tree blossom).
Pollinator
The instrument that carries the pollen (usually a bee but a human can do it).
Self-pollinizer (Self-fruitful)
The tree has "perfect flowers" and can pollinate itself.
Self-unfruitful (Self-sterile)
The tree has "perfect flowers" but cannot pollinate itself and needs pollen from a related variety of tree.
Understanding pollination in your garden or orchard
Some fruit trees that are self-pollinating produce more fruit when there are other fruit trees of their own species nearby. A self-pollinating apple tree, for instance, will produce its optimal crop with at least three varieties of apple trees within 50 feet. Why 50 feet? To make it most likely that a pollinator bee will make the trip from tree to tree.
Our fruit and nut tree descriptions will alert you to the pollination needs of the various varieties of trees, and it's also good to consult your local Master Gardener.
For example, Bartlett and Comice pears are self-fruitful in California, but in the Pacific Northwest they are self-unfruitful. If there is a range of bloom times within the fruit tree species you could run into trouble if the pollinizer tree is not blooming at the same time as the other variety of tree ready to be pollinated.
Many land grant universities offer helpful charts of good pollinizer matches between fruit trees, based on bloom times. Our favorites are from the University of Missouri or Colorado State University.
For more information on planning and maintaining a small orchard, read our blog articles that are linked to the fruit trees you're interested in. We also recommend the University of California's book The Home Orchard.
5 comments
Sharon, we do not sell pollinating kits. You can use a small paint brush to pollinate the blooms if you do not have other pollenizers in your garden like bees, flies, butterflies…
I am in desperate need of a few flowers or a polinating kit for my Orca pear tree that has bloomed earlier than my other pear trees. The flowers wont last much longer.
I have gravenstein, fuji, arkansas black, red and Goldens, a white flowering crabapple will solve all your pollination needs, they give alot of flowers and you can trim it short
Jo, I believe a Gravenstine is an apple tree. There are several apples that will pollinate the apple. Pollinated by Empire, Fuji, Gala, Red Delicious. If your neighbors have one of these, and they are within about 50-100 feet then, it may get pollinated. Otherwise you do need one of those apples to pollinate the tree.
Just brought home a Gravenstine tree to plant. I need a pollinator. Will a pear tree act as such? I didn’t know about the pollination until I was leaving the Nursery. I am not excited about a CRAB apple tree – planting in my yard. The neighbor has three vine apple trees – will that work? They are across the street. Thank you for any help you can provide.