Monday, May 21, 2007

OF Buds, Birds and Bees

We have apple trees in our back yard. Two large golden delicious who's year it is to fruit. Golden Delicious only fruits every other year. This is an on year.

During the flower season I did not hear the steady buzz of bees in the flower canopy I am used to hearing.

Now that fruit has set the total set is about 1/3 normal. That's OK because in a normal year we get a full fruit set and half the tree absizes the fruit during the season.

Could this be due to low insect pollination?

On the other hand we have 3 large Sargent crabapples in the back. They are loaded with fruit as normal. I wonder if they aren't self pollinators or since the flower set is so dense there isn't enough wind pollination to handle the program.

I know this, if I were in the Golden Delicious apple business I would not be a happy camper with the fruit set.

I think the bee dissapearance thing may be a real problem.

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