Fruit
Trees and Pollination
Books
have been written on fruit tree pollination (we
even have a couple in the office) and the purpose of this page
is not to be another book. The subject of pollination is not as
complicated as one might think.
In the simplest terms, to produce a fruit, the female parts
of a flower must be fertilized with pollen. Generally this is
done by insects - take a look at our list of plants for bees
if you want to bring them into your garden or orchard. Some
plants fertilise with their own pollen and the rest need to
receive pollen from other, related plants. A very few produce
no viable pollen at all - so they take, but do not give. If
you know which type of fruit tree you have, self-fertile, pollinator
or "triploid" (the one without viable pollen itself)
you are pretty much there. All that remains is to know roughly
when your fruit tree is in flower and to ensure that, if it
is not self-fertile, a suitable pollinator (from either the
self-fertile or pollinator groups) is in flower at the same
time. And that is about all there is to fruit tree pollination
except to say that there are some fruit trees which are described
as self fertile but which yield better if they have a pollinator
other than themselves. Some apples and pears are the main examples
of this.
The rest of this area on fruit tree pollination is divided
into sections on each of the types of fruit tree we sell. So just
follow the links below to Apple Trees, Cherry Trees, Damsons,
Pear Trees, Plums & Quince Trees. In each you will find lists
of varieties of the relevant fruit available on this site. These,
where necessary are shown in pollination groups so it is clear
"what works with what". and links from table to the
individual trees if you want to learn more about a particular
variety. On every fruit tree page there is also a link back to
the pollination table you came from. If you think this could be clearer, or you believe we have made a mistake of some
sort please visit our blog site at http://blog.ashridgetrees.co.uk
and leave a comment - we will do our best to make the changes
you think would make anything around the topic of fruit tree pollination simpler to understand.
