I tried hand pollination of Santa Rosa plum and found almost no pollen at least compared to apples…Is it typical for apples to have more stamen pollen than plum?
It’s normal for plums and pluot to have scant pollen. There’s enough to do the job but it doesn’t come easily when trying to hand pollinate. I haven’t had much need to hand pollinate apples but am not surprised if you found more.
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Reviving this thread as I’m also curious about this topic. My European plum (Mont-Royal, self pollinating) is covered with flowers this year, but the bees and other insects are much more interested in my black currants and haskaps. Because of this I tried some hand pollinating with a small paintbrush. My eyes are pretty sharp, and it looks like either plum pollen is microscopic, or it’s not really producing any pollen. The tree has never set fruit before so I have nothing to compare it to.
Curious if anyone else has noted this and if there’s no reason to worry. Regardless I’ll report back in a month with the results.
My experience no need to worry.
Plum pollen so minute compared to apples.
My self pollinating plums do ok
without my help…took a few years for trees to have fruit, but eventually they did
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Thanks Fran
Did some hand pollenation yesterday, though I also saw a couple of bees as well. Hoping for success.