So you have brought your new baby apple tree home, settled it into the perfect spot and now you wait…. Have you ever thought about what has to happen for you to get an apple on your tree?
Six Apple Tree Pollination Requirements
1. Must Have Flowers
Your tree has to produce flowers in the spring. A lot of factors affect this:
- Age – Most apple trees begin producing flowers by year three. Some longer and some even the first year. This has to do with the type of apple you are growing. For example, Northern Spy a delicious heritage apple can take up to 7 years to get around to fruiting!
- Rootstock – Not only does the rootstock affect the eventual height of the tree and anchorage it can also encourage the tree to begin producing flowers at an earlier or later age.
- Sunlight – The amount of sunlight a tree gets has an affect its ability to set fruit buds.
- Flower health - If your flowers are damaged by weather or other factors, you won't get any apples
2. Pollinators Needed
A bee, usually a Mason Bee, but there are many many others (over 500 varieties of Bees just in BC), has to carry the pollen from the flower of another variety of apple or crabapple tree (provided it is not a sterile flower), over to your tree and in the course of collecting pollen distribute some particles of the pollen of the other tree onto the flower of your tree!!!
3. Sufficient Pollen
Your tree has to then get enough of those pollen grains onto the pistil of the flower so that the flower is fully pollinated. If you have apples that begin on your tree but fall off, usually in June, you know that not enough grains of pollen were distributed onto the pistil.
4. Maturity
Your little tree has to be old enough and watered enough to support the growth of that apple. Not surprisingly, we are not the only ones who love to eat apples, but if your growing baby apple makes it through all that, well MAGIC happens and you get to bite into a crunchy, juicy and deliciously complex fruit that YOU got to play a part in making! Congratulations!!!
5. Higher Phosphorous Fertilizer
Your apple tree needs to be fed in order for it to produce a lot of fruit. Each Spring, apply a Fruit Tree and Berry Food, or a fertilizer with a higher middle number (Phosphorous). This encourages the growth of roots, flowers and fruits.
6. Proper Pruning & Timing
If you prune at the wrong time of year, you may be cutting off the fruit buds. Most apples develop fruit buds in early spring, so only prune when the tree is dormant in winter.
Secrets of Apple Pollination
The best way to make sure you can get that pollen from a different variety of apple on to the pistil of your apple tree is to plant 2 different but compatible apple trees. If you have fallen in love with one of the big beautiful triploid apples that are pollen sterile, you may need room for 3 different types of apple trees if you want apples on all three…or share with your neighbours!!
Many different pollination charts for apples show either pollination timing (early, mid, late) or use pollination day (bloom day 1, day 2, …Day 17). The easiest way to explain this is you want your apple blossoms to be blooming at around the same time so that the bees can do their important work!! If you are using the number system you want them to bloom within 5 to 7 days of one another. If you are using the timing an early bloomer will usually overlap with an early to midseason bloomer and a midseason bloomer will overlap with a mid to late season bloomer and so on. There are a number of varieties of apples that have particularly long bloom seasons and are super helpful for pollination like Jonathan and fruiting crabapples like Dolgo have a super long bloom time and yes, they will pollinate your apples too!
Wait!! I only have a patio and room for 1 apple!!! Yes, you can absolutely have an apple but you may have to do a little work. Each spring when your little patio tree is in bloom you will need to pick a bouquet of apple blossoms and bring them home. Then you will need to take a small paintbrush or cotton swab and go from the flower on the bouquet to the flowers on your little tree. You will be pollinating your own tree and get a better appreciation for our winged pollinators!!
It’s not too complicated but a little bit of know how can get you off to the right start…and we are always here to help you!