I have placed a few trees in the greenhouse out of fear they would die with the cold spells we were having. An Apricot and Nectarine that are still in the nursery pot. I might bring in the peach if there’s room. Last year it didn’t start to move until first week of June! Crazy
Can I pollinate them with a paintbrush? They are a few days to a week before they will be open.
apricot
I’ve moved a peach into my unheated greenhouse but swore off doing that because of the tree flowering before the pollinators came out to play. I did pollinate with a paint brush (and even the ends of cat whiskers) as well as using tweezers. I am in no way an expert and didn’t know even the little I know now about pollination but I ended up with about a 25% success rate.
That was so much of a pain in the neck (literally) that after that I decided to keep the tree out for the winter and come what may. It was more hardy than I thought it would be until the peach borers visited. I’ve read that the peach borers are attracted when a peach tree is distressed so perhaps I should have pampered it after all.
So yes, in my experience, you can use a paintbrush (or cat whisker) or tweezers. Good luck!
Hi Matt,
I’ve done a lot of hand pollination and it works well. I have many young potted trees in a crawlspace, and depending on how cold the winter is they get their chill hour quotas and wake up early, even with no light. This year was the most extreme, with several waking up about Christmas. I also hand pollinate peach trees planted in ground in an unheated greenhouse later towards spring.
I had such good fruit set the first year in the greenhouse that the next year I was more complacent, and had much less fruit set. The important thing seems to be some flowers want to be worked very soon after they open (maybe the pollen all goes away) and since flowers don’t all open at the same time, that means several different days of pollinating. So far I’ve had 21 crawl space trees blooming this year, including many under 2’ high, and I’ve been a bit haphazard about my pollenating efforts as I figured I would have to thin so much anyway on the little trees. I have good fruit set on just under half the trees. Some have seemingly all the blossoms setting fruit, and many have no set at all. These are nectarines, peaches, and apricots. I usually use a small tightly rolled piece of toilet paper (taped so it doesn’t unroll) as my brush.
Duane
These are great ideas, thanks you two! I will try both paint brush and toilet paper rolled up. I now wish I had waited another 2 weeks but if it’s cold, it’s cold. nothing I can do. Temps are around 15 C (60 F)
I read one guy gets bees in feb-March into his greenhouse to do the pillinating. That’s a little extreme tho 
Thank you! I’ll keep you guys posted on how they open.
I have done hand pollination and definitely got more fruitset there, but I have also seen a photo of someone cutting off a blooming limb of another tree (mainly apples) and putting it in a small container with water in a crook of another apple tree. I thought that was a clever idea.
Feb 21
Apricot flowered and now leafed out. It seems to be setting some fruit. They might easily drop later on and that’s fine. I’ll keep it well watered. The greenhouse temps are rising. Now in the low 70’sF.
March 20
Update on the Apricot. We got one cold night and it killed all the fruit. Now it’s the Nectarine’s turn. I have started thinning a few. I will leave about 5 on the tree.
