The weather person cannot tell you if the bees are buzzing your trees. I can tell you that they were buzzing mine plenty and to not much affect for many varieties. Usually when the trees are in bloom I’m home all day doing nursery work. When I saw all the bee activity, I thought I could count on a heavy fruit set on most species although I was a bit worried that trees woudn’t be able to gather enough energy to set even pollinated fruit and maybe that’s what happened, if the ovaries were still vital coming into spring.
AJ, if it’s warm there today and there are no bees in your trees it’s safe to spray. If there are no petals left on the trees I would be very surprised if there were bees.
Oh, bees. I walk my yard a couple of times a day. (Admittedly, often more than that. My yard is small. I can tell if there are bees or flies buzzing around.
I can only tell you that I believe those many rainy and windy days during blooms have reatly contributed to poor setting of my J plums, pluots. I have those varieties for a few years ( some more than a few). This was the first year their production vastly drooped.
Mine set but not heavy and yeah weather related. Everything blooms at once here too, and that did not happen this year. It is a strange year!!
They say to spray very early or very late to avoid bees too. I sprayed at 6 AM this morning.
All petals are gone. I have been waiting as some bloomed late which never happened before. Last year I sprayed on 4-22. All blooms were done. This year it’s today! Over a month later. Oh wait I think that was a spray before blooms looks like 5-18 last year. They were all done. OK that makes more sense.
I was up early as I’m watching my daughter’s dogs and they got me up. I let them out first, I think it is dry enough now to let them out again. My wife too left for work at 6am no rest for nurses. She works tomorrow too. Next weekend we will make up for it! She has to work a few holidays a year, this ain’t a bad one to work! They pay through the nose, so it’s a huge payday for us too.
I think if bees were not finding nourishment they would have stayed in their nests, trying to save energy for better days. It is hard for me to believe that complete pollination couldn’t be achieved in a single day but that is a good idea and certainly quite possible, lacking any research or proof about how many visits to a flower on average is required to achieve pollination.
If my peaches and nectarines don’t end up setting well, I will think it is about energy reserves. Because they are receptive to their own pollen, they would presumably require far fewer visits to pollinate.
I’m now finding adequate to pretty good set with most of my E. plums, Shiro and Reema, J. plums. Satsuma, Early Magic, Laredo and Ruby Queen have almost no set at all. Sat and RQ had very little fruit last year as well and Laredo never achieved adequate quality. Last year Elephant Heart was loaded with the best plums imaginable but the crop looks light this one.
If all I’m without are a few of my best J. plums, I won’t have anything to complain about- overall the E’s are more important to me because I like to use them frozen, but not J’s.
If Reema comes through well again I’m going to consider it perhaps my most useful J. plum because of both high quality and productivity.
Nectarine set tends to be pretty light, but probably good enough for a crop without much thinning, but much less set fruit than on a normal year. Elephant heat set too light.
I’m inclined to believe the issue is deficient energy and not pollination, but we are all entitled to our own guesses. Can’t prove anything- only wonder. Peaches tend to be less than normal too, but there are many more than I need.
It’s also possible that a lot of fruit just rotted before it was formed. There are lots of dried out peach and nect flowers that certainly look like this happened to, especially those in the relative shade.
I sat under my multi grafted Shiro (about 17 varieties) today to look so I could see who have fruit.
Shiro ( normally set very well) has scattered fruit, still more than other varieties on that tree.
Beauty set well again for the second year.
Toka, Lavia, Laroda, Superior, Satsuma, Nadia all had plenty of flower but…
no fruit on Satsuma.
I saw one fruit on Nadia, Lavina and Superior.
A few on Laroda and Toka.
Flavor Supreme and Flavor King are too early to tell.
Oh, I saw one plum on your Reema graft (thank you).
I don’t think it’s an energy deficient issue. If it was, my E plums
(bloomed 5-6 days later) would have taken time off this year.
Two of the 3 E plum trees are fully loaded again this year.
Castleton is not fully loaded but have more fruit than the whole multi grafted Shiro combined.
It is only 1st fruiting year, so getting any plums I am grateful. But yes,full of blossoms, some fruit began but failed, some dropped, and only 2 kinds seem to have any still growing. I am excitef to try them though. Nowhere near full size, so I am nervous if any more will drop.
Growing stone fruit is not easy. I still enjoy it as it is a challenge here. But not as bad as some places. Fruit set, managing the trees, and pest pressure all knock at your door. I remember Scott said it takes about 5 years for all the local pests to find your orchard. And I found this to be very true. the first few years were easy sailing. I though I had it made! Ha!
Well worth all the trouble though to have such good fruit.
In regards poor pollination during rainy weather I read somewhere that is has to do with the time it takes for pollen to travel to ovule and the flower life being shortened in rainy/wet conditions!
When it is wet and cool, flowers stay on plants longer- up to a point. It is true that too much rain can cause flowers to rot.
I wonder why my peaches set so much more fruit than my nectarines and why European plums set more consistently than J. plums and besides Harrow Sweet and Harrow Delight, pears tended to set little or no crop.
The flowers of all seemed to be equally tended.
My opinion remains that the trees were struggling with inadequate energy reserves from he lack of sunny weather. But so what? We will likely never know- but it is known that both issues can affect fruit set.
I have two trees with dominant Reema plum branches, one of the trees gets quite a bit more shade- it has very little fruit. The one in more sun is loaded.
That’s what I attributed my poor pollination to. The coldest temperatures were mild, only down to the upper 20s a few times in the spring. The only bees I saw were bumblebees and did not see them when it was wet and windy. I have very little fruit on plums, pluots, sweet and sour cherries and even some of my honeyberries have no fruit but Santa Rosa plum is loaded with fruit. We did have a few days warm enough for bees when the Santa Rosa bloomed. Apples, peaches and pears are ok.
Mine set fruit and turned yellow and dropped. Classic lack of pollination sign. Wet and windy many of those days.
J plums bloomed about 7-8 days before E plums.
Of the J plums, Beauty set many against all odds.
On E plums, Opal took the prize. I have one graft on Castleton and the other on Mirabelle. Both are loaded. It is the only variety that I had to seriously pruned several off.
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