Could you confirm the Black Twig and Summer Banana on the USDA site?
Thanks!
Neither are in the collection. Paragon is . Listed as a triploid.
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Just a suggestion. Put a few mason bee houses out near or next to your apple trees. They do a great job of help with pollinating the blossoms. They really help in my orchard.
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Clean wheat straw does quite well.
My relatives used that for years.
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yes, that’s easier to come by than sawmill hardwood sawdust in my neighborhood. The nearest sawmill that cuts that kind of wood is not conveniently close. I should think any dry hay would work well… straw is a lot more expensive and the seeds in hay wouldn’t hurt. If it is feed hay it has to be dry.
That particular parcel has a sizeable honey bee yard on it and the apple trees are always roaring with bees of all types. I never had any issues until I fell four full of the full size apple trees.
I do enjoy the native pollinators. The big carpenter bees overnight on the blueberry bushes and African Basil at my house.
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Thanks Alan! This kind of detail is very convincing. I’m not sure where AI found it, of course, but it is worth keeping. I’m not a big apple fan in any season, but winter does inspire a longing for fresh local fruit.
I had a neighbor with bee hives next door to my orchard. When I happened to put out some mason bee houses around my orchard I could see the mason bees were a lot more active on the blossoms than the honey bees, for some reason. So I keep putting more mason bee houses out each year. They tend to get so weathered they break down so I put up some new ones each year. It really did help my fruit production, I believe.
theres a lot of studies showing native solitary bees do a lot more pollinating than honey bees. keep honey bees for honey, but support native polinators for good pollination. Planting native plants between rows is also very helpful
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Some of the most voracious pollinators here are a smaller species of yellow jacket/hornet. But they are a mixed blessing. They often rob nectar by cutting into deep flowers.
But I take heart that the invasive Jorno Spiders have a big appetite and success eating the hornets too.
yellow jackets eat aphids too so theyre allright by me
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Native bees don’t need native plants, necessarily. They welcome the immigrants that produce nourishing food. I have lots of flowering natives but also some things brought here from other continents that help extend the season of my pollen food pantry. Someone gave me a late blooming aster which has colonized a corner of my land. It is still is drawing all kinds of native bees, wasps and flies weeks after the New England and Canadian asters have finished. The trick is to have different plants that flower through as long time period as possible.
I get honey bees long after they are useful to me for pollinating my orchard. I’d rather not have these invasives at all… better the food go to those that are here when I need them. It is a competition after all- the honeybees are reducing my native population, I’m sure.
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I was just wanting to assure watchers the little unplanned fertility experiment results concerning the Winesap were not distorted the lack of bugs and bees. I’ve been tending the trees on my MIL’s old place since 1995.
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Exactly why I just collected seeds from 3 species of Helianthus. To feed native pollinators through to December.
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An interesting and complicating factor is how species will reject and accept different flowers.
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I like the information you have been providing about the actual specs of the apples, especially storage times. I used CHAT ( for the first time) to look up Spitzenburg apples and it was very helpful. When I went back in to find that info again it gave me something that was not the same info. Looks like it picks different sites for giving the information. Just a little side note to this thread.
That is essential to know… CHAT is far from gospel and it pays to ask questions in different ways and to pin it down to dig deeper for research. It throws up a lot of crap in a hurry and it doesn’t all stick- sometimes a bit like digging a planting hole with a back-hoe. You might end up with the topsoil where you don’t want it.
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I did a google AI chat regarding lost Georgia heritage apples. It often tried to say they were a synonym or misspelling. And offered different varieties. I then pointed out contrary internet information and it seemed to learn.
Pointing out the USDA/Canadian 1870 expedition to Russia really seemed to blow it’s mind. Learning Aport was not one apple variety. But a whole range of apples classified as O’Porto’s in Russia.
It also claimed “Grand Sultan” was just a synonym for Yellow Transparent. And said it was apparently lost. I brought up it is alive and well as a very distinct variety at Bernewold Nursery in the UK. And it was just another of the clade of Russian Apples grouped under the Transparent style banner.
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I asked it for blood peach varieties and jt told me there was one called blood of saturn (a donut peach thats red fleshed) and when i asked where it found thst and i couldn’t find sources it tried to gaslight me that i was confused based on something i read online and it never said that lol. Blood of saturn does sound cool though
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