I’m in the peak of apple pollination season right now and feel the need to update information on pollination just a little bit. I’ve been doing this for 12 years now this spring’ and pollination is the thing that I have changed the most and continue to evolve.
Last season was the organza bag revolution. These are sheer nylon bags that I use to cover flowers, anywhere from one flower cluster to 18 inches of branch. The bags are applied to sections of branch with no flowers open. If any are opened, they are removed before bagging. This was a huge improvement and makes pollination much more efficient.
I started making mass pollinations of branches by wrapping in mesh and clothespinning it together. Organza bags made it easy to bag large numbers of branches and flower clusters. Every size of bag I use is represented in this photo.
My organza bag method also introduced a new problem though, cross contamination. If I take the cotton swabs I was using pick some pollen up out of my pollen packet and start applying it to opened flowers, I’m also picking up pollen from those flowers. In the past, that was not a problem, because I was opening closed blossoms which were not releasing pollen yet, and pollinating those. Occasionally a closed blossom will be releasing some pollen, but it is not usual.
The contamination was with pollen of varieties I use in breeding anyway. I don’t mind some contamination, because it makes interesting crosses that I might not otherwise make and who knows. But I realized that in situations where I had very little pollen saved and had to try to make it go as far as possible, it may very well end up that I was pollination more with other things than what I was intending to use.
Part of the problem was the cotton swabs I was using. They are big and hold a lot of pollen which works it’s way down into the cotton ball end, so I could not afford to throw them out and start a new one. This year, I ordered some micro makeup applicators and they solved that problem. These are small plastic sticks with a tiny microfiber fuzzball on the end. I can pick up some pollen with one of those, pollinate one variety and then toss it and use a new one for the next variety. The only way I will get contamination is if I double dip, which I sometimes do and sometimes not, depending. I can flick most of the pollen off and dip again in some cases. In other cases, it will stick too much and I might choose to use a second swab for the same variety.
These micorfiber makeup applicators are also a game changer. I wish they were black to show pollen better, otherwise they seem to work great.
Overall, I may be using less pollen than I used to, because I don’t have these cottonballs on a stick sucking up all my pollen and holding it. The downside is that it is much slower to apply pollen to the female parts of the flower with a tiny swab than it is to brush over it randomly with a bigger swab. But I have a partial solution for that now too, I think… This year, I am waiting longer until most of the blossoms are open, then pollinating a branch once and re-bagging it. That saves a ton of work, since I just have to bag it, open it once, pollinate and then tie it off and leave it. We will see how that works out in terms of pollination efficiency. I think some of the blossoms are ending up aging too much to take pollination, but most look fresh and probably fertile.
Varieties vary a great deal in whether they all open in a short period, or very gradually, so in some cases, it may very well be best to pollinate more than once. For instance, Pink Parfait blooms early, but it has a long bloom season, where the flowers are opening gradually. Gold Rush just blows out completely in a few days. I am often pollinating while there are still a few blossoms closed too. If they look like they are big enough to open soon, I’ll open them and pollinate them.
I think this basic approach is going to work. It doesn’t take too terribly long to pollinate a branch with these tiny brushes and it’s very acceptable if I’m only doing it once in most cases. I recommend both the organza bags and micro brushes. I ordered three sizes of brush, but I think I’ll be using the smallest one almost all the time. Any of them are better than cotton swabs. For organza bags I use 4 sizes 6 x 9, 8 x 12, 12 x 16 and 16 x 24, and I use them all in different situations. I had a ton, but I use so many that I just ordered another 130. They do break down in the sun, but in most case, I think they will last for at least two seasons. The bags not only protect from pollen contamination by insects, they also protect the fruit from munching insects, hail and birds with one application. They are not 100% protection from birds, but if there is a lot of other fruit, they will not try to peck through a bag. I also don’t have to label fruits before they fall, and if they do fall, they stay in the bag. When it is time to harvest, I put the apples in the bag with the label from the tree until I process them.
Last year I bagged a lot of control blossoms to see if they would self pollinate. I only got fruit and seeds off of one, Flaxen, which is one of my seedlings. I am growing the seed out to see what happens, so far I have two survivors. In most cases, apples are not self pollinating, but if you want to be sure, bag a cluster of blossoms before it opens and find out.
One last issue to talk about is old pollen and how long it keeps for. This year I used quite a bit of 2022 pollen. In the past I’ve used pollen that was 2 and 3 years old and it seemed to work, but I was also not isolating blossoms. I hope still this year to makes some experimental pollinations with older pollen I have sitting around, but the season is well along, so I better get on that. I feel pretty strongly that pollen will last a year, especially if stored carefully. I store it in the freezer now. I make sure it is very dry, seal it in a jar with the dessicant packs from vitamin bottles, or some toasted rice, let it sit out another week, then freeze.
Next year I will probably make a good updated video on pollination. I think I will learn a lot this year to inform that project.
I’ll add links to the swabs and organza bags to my amazon store page. I would not be surprised if the swabs are available at drug stores, but I have not looked. If only doing a few pollinations, the 8x12 inch size organza bags are probably a good choice.
