Nice set up Fruitnut, did you buy that property with the green house already set up? Hows that Emerald doing?

blueboy:

I built the greenhouse with a little help back when I was young and strong :-) It's 32ft by 54ft and 16 ft tall. Not much I'd change if doing it again. I'd put the cooler pads and exhaust fans a little higher but not sure it would make any difference.

The Emerald that lacked pollinating insects set almost no fruit and what did set are small berries. Sweetcrisp has a full set of large fruit without pollination. I'm very pleased with the bloom on my 2nd year Sweetcrisp. I really think it could go 8 lbs of fruit.

Fruitnut,

What are the cut off plants in the last picture? Do you water all the plants by hand? I didn't see any spray heads.

I sure hope my Emeralds are self fertile. The only SHB I have with open flowers right now are Emerald and Bountiful Blue. Sunshine and Gulfcoast should have flowers in the next week or two. I havent seen 1 bee of any kind on them yet. Is this the first year you fruited Emerald?

bamboo:

Some cut off plants are potted figs others are newly planted trees in-ground. I set pots around newly planted inground trees to supply extra water. They don't compete well with the old inground trees and I limit water all summer to increase brix.

Potted trees have all been watered by hand so far. I'd like to go drip but would need rainwater system for the blueberry. Also if dripped in pots I might have more pass through water affecting inground trees.

blueboy:

My only other crops of Emerald were pollinated by bumblebees. Although it does seem that I forced some bloom early on Emerald last year before the bees arrived.

Hard to tell, but what do you have flowering for stonefruit?

Orange looks really nice.

What I didn't point out but should have is that the in-ground trees are watered by drip lines under the ground fabric. I flood about 7 inches in Dec and won't water again until April just before the first apricots ripen. Then the drip is about 3 inches per month in summer. Total water is about 28 inches per year, half that needed outside. Partly that's because there are no weeds and little evaporation from the soil surface.

The white ground fabric is mainly for added light into the tree canopy. Light is reduced more than 50% by double poly and 30% shade cloth.

A real key for stone fruit is that humidity is kept as low as possible by running exhaust fans 24/7 all summer.

I admire your dedication.

Frank:

Bloom is a week or two later than usual this year. That's on purpose to shorten the warm season. Bloom is just beginning on both pluot and apricot. Bloom looks to be compressed this year perhaps because the cool period was longer. Even the nectarine are swelling.

A compressed bloom will be good for the bees. A half dozen to one dozen nesting females would provide plenty of pollination. The hive comes with about 40, maybe more bees, mostly females I think. So I need to limit their activity which the hive allows. Also I may kill about half to start with. Cruel maybe but easier to manage.

A class C hive is recommended for up to 5,000 sqft of tomatoes and would be about right for fruit trees.

Just counted and have 111 potted and 55 in-ground trees in 1700 sq ft of greenhouse. That's about 10 sq ft per tree/pot. The biggest trees are 6ft by 8ft or 48 sq ft. Each of those has 2-6 varieties per tree. So mostly it's about 10 sq ft per fruiting unit.

Fruitnut,

What do they charge you for 40 bumble bees?

For the hive and over night shipping it comes to about $150. Not cheap by any means and only lasts about 6 weeks. There are bigger ones some even designed for outdoor use.

Wow.......I will have to look up what type of hive they live in. Are they the small bumble bees or those big ones that drill in to wood? Today there were 100's of the small bumble bees working the BB's as well as a few of the big bumble bees. The big fellas were so drunk on nectar you could pet them lol.

These are the big bumblebees, about an inch long. Link below to hive diagram.

Here is a link that might be useful: bumblebee hive

Fruitnut,

Thank you that was very interesting. I assume at this time of year you have no wild bees around. Why does it only last 6 weeks? They can't reproduce in the greenhouse?

They do reproduce some in their little box. But the nesting area/material is limited and colony strength declines after 4-6 weeks. There are always at least a few bees when I no longer need pollination but sometimes they aren't very active. If they aren't feeding larvae, they're foraging declines rapidly.

The larger hives are said to have better queens and last longer.

A few days makes a difference.

{{gwi:56371}}

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/ Closeup of a busy bumblebee.

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Pretty apricot about to bloom.

{{gwi:56373}}

Didn't notice at first but caught a bee in flight, lower right bottom picture.

Plenty of blooms now! Any sweet cherries in there? My trees are all sleeping, dreaming of warmer days :)

The white blooms look like plums (pluots?) and the bottom pick has to be an apricot...?

Very nicely tended and arranged setup fruitnut. You are an inspiration to many. I'll bet even the bumbler's appreciate you! I imagine the fragrance inside of there smell like heaven right about now.

Frank:

Sweet cherry are still dormant. They bloom a lot later than pluots, white, and apricot/aprium, more pink/white. Have one very low chilling nectarine about to bloom. The low chilling SHB blueberries start blooming before anything but have a long bloom period.