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Pollination wothout the buzz.

In our garden greenhouse are three large tubs each containing a fruit tree. They are a Peach - Avalon Pride, an apricot - Flavourcot and a nectarine - Fantasia.
The tubs containing the trees were originally outdoors but after the first year, when we managed two delicious fruits from the peach tree, the peach and nectarine were so badly affected by peach leaf curl that they didn't manage a single fruit.
The apricot was unaffected by this problem but it generally flowers very early and so it seemed that it would be a good idea to move that indoors to to offer some protection.
This year all three trees are flowering at the same time. Last year the apricot was covered in flowers and produced a decent amount of fruit.
This year it has only a couple of small sprigs of flowers.
On the other hand the peach and nectarine are loaded with flower. The larger lovely pink flowers of the nectarine dominate the group.


The peach flowers are more delicate and less showy but viewed close up you can appreciate their beauty.


As the trees are indoors and often the greenhouse door is closed at this time of year, added to which the weather may not be conducive to encouraging insect pollinators to be out and about, I am giving nature a helping hand - literally.
Using a soft paintbrush I am trying to mimic bee action by gently brushing the pollen from one flower to another. The peach and nectarine have far too many flowers for me to make sure that I brush every flower but I am trying to visit as many flowers as possible.

One day when I was busy with my pretend bee a bumble bee joined me so maybe she will have dealt with the flowers that I missed.

I've added a short narrated video of my attempts at hand pollination. It's about two minutes long. I know some people enjoy watching videos and other don't so I am trying to cater for everyone and also get to play with video editing.  Does everyone sound weird when their voices are recorded? I should credit my cameraman, Martyn.



Copyright: Original post from Our Plot at Green Lane Allotments http://glallotments.blogspot.co.uk/ author S Garrett



This post first appeared on Our Plot At Green Lane Allotments, please read the originial post: here

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Pollination wothout the buzz.

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