Pollinating Fruit Trees

Fruit trees such as apple and pear trees are a wonderful addition to any landscape. If you wish to have fruit trees that actually bear quality fruit, however, there are a few steps you will need to take. Namely, you have to find a way to help your fruit trees with cross-pollination. Otherwise, the fruit they do produce will be small and oddly shaped.

With apple trees, you need to be certain to plant varieties of apples or crabapple trees that will create pollen that is compatible with your other apple trees. The trees you select for pollinating purposes need to be selected carefully because some varieties produce very little pollen or the pollen they do produce is sterile. Therefore, these fruit trees are not good choices. Since there are so many different types of apple trees available and because they respond to each other in different ways, it is best to check with the nursery in order to select the trees that are most compatible with one another.

It is also possible to help pollinate the apple tree without actually growing other varieties of trees. In order to accomplish this, however, blossoms from compatible trees such as crabapples need to be placed near the tree. Honeybees and other pollinators can then complete the pollinating process by carrying the pollen from the flowers to the tree. Placing honeybee hives in the area is the best way to encourage this type of pollinating For those that do not wish to keep the honeybees themselves, they can rent honeybee hives for a period of time from beekeepers in the area.

Pollinating pear trees follows a similar process as apple trees, though the blossoms of pear trees are not as attractive to bees as those of apple trees. For this reason, more bees may be needed to get the job done.