Fruit Tree Pollination

Pollination of Fruit Trees

Books have been written on fruit tree pollination (we even have a couple in the office) and the purpose of this page is not to be another book. The subject of pollination is not as complicated as one might think.

In the simplest terms, to produce a fruit, the female parts of a flower must be fertilized with pollen. Generally this is done by insects - take a look at our list of plants for bees if you want to bring them into your garden or orchard. Some plants fertilise with their own pollen and the rest need to receive pollen from other, related plants. A very few produce no viable pollen at all - so they take, but do not give. If you know which type of fruit tree you have, self-fertile, pollinator or "triploid" (the one without viable pollen itself) you are pretty much there. All that remains is to know roughly when your fruit tree is in flower and to ensure that, if it is not self-fertile, a suitable pollinator (from either the self-fertile or pollinator groups) is in flower at the same time. And that is about all there is to fruit tree pollination except to say that there are some fruit trees which are described as self fertile but which yield better if they have a pollinator other than themselves. Some apples and pears are the main examples of this.

The rest of this area on fruit tree pollination is divided into sections on each of the types of fruit tree we sell. So just follow the links below to Apple Trees, Cherry Trees, Damsons, Pear Trees, Plums & Quince Trees. In each you will find lists of varieties of the relevant fruit available on this site. These, where necessary are shown in pollination groups so it is clear "what works with what". and links from table to the individual trees if you want to learn more about a particular variety. On every fruit tree page there is also a link back to the pollination table you came from. If you think this could be clearer, or you believe we have made a mistake of some sort please leave a review on a relevant page and we will answer/amend as quickly as we can. We would love to make the topic of fruit tree pollination simpler to understand.

If you know all about fruit tree pollination already, then skip straight to our fruit trees section