Hello,
Years ago I purchased a dwarf Hawaii apple tree (Golden Delicious x Gravenstein). It hasn’t produced many (hardly any) apples but this year it has set an exceptionally large number of blossoms and I’m wondering if there is anything I can do to improve the amount of fruit that eventually sets. There is a Gravenstein located 30 or so feet away and it has always had a good number of apples. There is a Granny Smith, Anna and on the other side of my acre of land.
Granny smith is a triploid apple with 3 sets of chromosomes it must be pollenated with a regular 2 set diploid apple, it also produces no fertile pollen to pollenate other apples. Gravenstein is always listed as triploid but it might be 3 sets + a few extra or 3 sets - a few. Anyway it behaves as a triploid and requires a diploid pollinator. Your Hawaii being a cross between a 2x and 3 x apple could result in any number of mixed chromones numbers, so assume its needs a 2x diploid pollinator. That leaves your Anna apple which one of the parents of is Golden Delicious which is also a parent of your Hawaii, which might render some of the pollen incomppatable but its also possible that your flowering times are not in sync and this is just an odd year where they align. Gravenstein is an early flowering apple however Anna is a very early flowering apple as it only requires very few chill hours (300) you could have just lucked out. Anyway the solution is to plant or graft more diploid apples to ensure fertilization. Anna is almost always paired with Dorsett Golden, and there are two any early flowering apples to name without knowing your tastes or needs.
Wow! Thanks so much for all of the information. It may take a bit of time for me to digest and understand completely. For the record the Anna, Granny Smith, Gravenstein and Honeycrisp (I forget to include), always set heavily. It’s only the Hawaii that hasn’t produced. I think your comment regarding the sync issue may be absolutely correct since in the past I believe that the Hawaii flowered after the Gravenstein.
Thanks again for the information!
I can not locate any info on the Hawaii bloom time, but stark suggest it would be pollenated a mid season bloom like a Fuji,
SkillCult, who is a member here, sells pollen…for you to be the bee.
just fyi, I have saved my own pollen, so haven tried any from him.
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For whatever it’s worth, it’s mid-to-late April in my orchard.
It looks pretty shaded in your picture. Apples with less sun set less. Hawaii is also a light setter based on my limited experience with it.
Hawaii would overbear for us and needed lots of thinning. In our heat the apples got sunburnt, but you won’t get much in the shade. We had lots of varieties around so pollination was never an issue, Granny Smith is an excellent pollinator and blooms about the right time.
That’s my experience in Northern California, too.
im certainly no expert and may have nothing to do with your question but isnt this tree/bush in need of some serious pruning? Seems like even if it does set some fruit the majority would be shaded out and be inferior anyway?
