Who say's we need bees,..great for you!

>> Flavor Grenade could be self fruitful but if so it still needs help getting it's pollen onto it's stigma. A air hose with some good blast's might work also.

It's just starting to get warm here,with the temperature approaching 60F.I have a Nectarine that is in full bloom,but have only seen a few bees around.
Will it help for me to use a brush on the flowers or does the wind usually do a good enough job on them? Thanks,Brady

Peach and nectarine are wind pollinated. They should do fine on there own outdoors. But in my greenhouse where wind speeds never exceed 1 mph, a light spray of water, real light, once a day seems to improve fruit set.

Very good information, fruitnut. Interesting to compare notes. Waiting to see what my fruit set will be for all my pluots - still all in bloom. But, looking like Flavor Finale will set well this year. Still a wee bit early to tell with Flavor King. Cot-n-Candy still a disappointment - 2 or two blossoms this year and I can't find any fruit from those two flowers. My Sweet Treat pluerries had lots of blossoms, but the Burgundy plum I planted was way, way behind, so sadly, no fruit set this year, I was SO sad. Really wanted to try the fruit this season, bummer. But, really glad. But, my Autumn Glo apricot looks to have about 20 fruits this year (planted last bare root season), and even my Flavor Delight, planted pretty late last year looks to have a few fruits. Same with the Goldkist. Across the board for me, apricots and especially apriums are slow to produce and not the best setters. Same with the Bellagold peacotum as well as the Desert Delight nectarine, all for various different reasons. Cherries look good, though. I should get about 80% set from blossoms on both Minnie Royal and Royal Lee. The other cherries are now just starting to bloom, so we'll see how they do, it will be their first season, so not holding my breath. Peaches and nectarines are off the chart, and taking me hours to thin.

Patty S.

Fruitnut,

How would you suggest polinating a WhiteGold cherry (supposed to be self-fertile) indoors? Is anything needed? Tapping the tree a bit each day? A paintbrush?

I brought one of my potted trees in a few weeks ago and have kept it in a south facing window. I'm interested to see how it produces indoors (not as good as a greenhouse, I know...).

Fruitnut,

I just wanted to say thanks for being here. I'm fairly new here, and looking at old threads, you have really helped me out so much by what you have posted. You saved me much heartache by not making a lot of newbie mistakes. I'm sure I will make some, though I avoided a lot thanks to you! It's interesting to read your observations. Nice to know what fruit might needs a little help. Which are heavy setters etc, thanks again! I'm in a different environment, and all, but it is still useful to know

Bob:

That will be an interesting experiment. Let us know what happens. It's nice to see healthy fully formed blossoms that come with adequate chilling, my goal next year ;-)!!!

I'm not sure if a self fertile cherry will set indoors with no help. What I'd do is transfer the pollen around with a small brush. That might not be necessary. They might set with no help at all. They might set with vibration or with a spritzing of water once a day. But using a brush is likely the surefire method.

Drew:

Thanks for the feedback. Have you kept abreast of the high tunnel work at MSU? interesting stuff.

I think that could be fun on small trees. One year the bees were ignoring my Mariposa plum and I had to use a ladder to get around to all the blossoms. I did it twice a day every day and got a decent amount of plums but I got tired of moving the ladder after a few days and had a hard time remembering which blossoms I already visited. How do the bees remember? Finally I worked my way up each branch from the lowest flowers and tied a little ribbon on the completed ones. I gave up on the uppermost ones after a while.

"Have you kept abreast of the high tunnel work at MSU? interesting stuff."

No, but I will look into it! I did read about high tunnel work in NY.

My pluots just got pulled out of the garage today...doubt they bloom for at least another 2 or 3 weeks at the earliest...