When I look at my plum trees, I don't see a lot of fruit. Last year was a spectacular year for plums at my house. I'm guessing it won't be so spectacular this year. Cherries and apples are doing great. Pears seem to be about in the middle.
We had very cold wet weather for a long time, until we didn't. The switch was very stark this year. Unusually cold and wet through April, as I recall. Then May got super hot and it seemed like it didn't rain for a month and a half. As I'm sure you know, bees are much more likely to get out and do their pollination trick when it's dry and sunny.
What is your fruit set like?
John S
PDX OR
Last year was terrible for most things. Nadia and Splash did well.
This year looked promising, but Asian plums and pluots bloomed great but set poorly. Almost no cherries. Apples are doing great. Asian pears are doing well. European plums okay. Pakistan mulberry looking good.
Maybe my first couple of pawpaws here.
Wet weather that dampens pollen is what I find is the leading indicator that limits success. The easiest way for me to find that out is by circumventing it. I, for example, have good sweet cherry set on the only tree that I purposefully dried a few pollenator flowers prior to anthesis in the house and used that in an hour of no rain and it worked.
Contrary to all the work required to get sweet cherry to set were my Asian round pears. They seem to self pollinate when it's raining. For those I don't even know how to slow it down. I thought regrafting miine to less productive pears might be the only way to slow it down some.
I am unable to paste Wintler parks apricot to show another year of fruits from my smartphone but it fruits again. That one seems to be reliable earlier than bees are seen. It's possible that apricots benefit from high availability of phosphates in the ground stream there and as resulting from older homes and the general old population of septic systems. If that's the case there then it's health in apricot trees that ultimately determine fertility and not so much the cultivar.
Japanese plums set poorly this year, with only a few more than last year. Two years in a row is disappointing, but we had a freak April snow two years ago and a weird spring this year. I just added a Hollywood, probably not a great idea considering how inconsistent Beauty, Shiro, and Satsuma have been.
Most of my apples are doing great this year, even though they didn't bloom until May and are still a couple of weeks behind their normal schedule. Last year they were all affected by the weather - even Liberty, GoldRush, and Winecrisp had some leaf scab.
I'm happy to get any fruit set on Hosui Asian pear, since it suffers from Blossom Blast every spring; this year it has a decent crop. Olympic (Korean Giant) is loaded and required a major thinning. So it should be a good Asian pear year.
GH,
I would think that the inconsistency of the other Asian pears would make Hollywood more valuable. I have many more Hollywood plums than Methley or some of my other plums. So now I will get more fruit. And the pollination will be better.
I am also getting good fruit set on apples and Asian pears.
John S
PDX OR
Thanks, John S, for the input. Planting a Hollywood plum wasn't a bad idea, after all! Also thanks to Daniel for the Hollywood scion - it rooted quickly and is growing well.
Hardy kiwis haven't been planted yet, so they're still in pots unfortunately. The younger male kiwi hasn't flowered, but both Ken's Red and Anna flowered profusely this year; surprisingly both have some fruit! I probably should pick them off, but that's such a hard thing to do.
Blueberries are excellent this year. I've finally learned to cover the bushes well before they start to turn blue, otherwise the robins eat most of them.
Idyllwild
jafar
Marsha H
Viron
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