“Everything is blooming most recklessly…”
Dear CSA Members,
Today was another gorgeous day on the farm. It started out foggy and cold but turned sunny and glorious by late morning. The trees are beginning to bloom, the apricots, a few early nectarines and now the dapple dandy plouts and we’re taking advantage of this great weather to pollinate. We pollinate to insure crop size and help Mother Nature along for our cherries, plums and pears and the robada apricots, all fruits that require pollinators. (Peaches and Nectarines are self- pollinating). Pollination is a tricky business, sometimes the bees aren’t attracted to a certain flower, or they are attracted to a weed flower that blooms at the same time, like mustard or there aren’t enough bees to begin with. In a weird year like this, with everything so early there could be poor bloom overlap which also can effect pollination adversely.
Collecting pollen is tricky as well. Pollen is a natural living thing and the conditions under which it is collected, stored and shipped all impact how viable it will be. Companies that supply pollen collect flowers from specific varieties of flowers, extract that pollen (not by bees), dry it, store and ship it to farmers like us. It is critical to get pollen onto the blossoms when they are the most receptive and this varies depending on the type of tree and the weather conditions during bloom. The time of best receptivity for blossoms is about 12 to 72 hours after they open depending on how warm it is. In cooler climates, the pollen is shed more slowly. When the anthers have shed most but not all of their pollen, they are the most receptive. We do it twice, once at the beginning of bloom when the trees are at about 50% bloom and later when they are just coming off full bloom. So, the dapple dandys are beginning to bloom and today Virgilio set off on a flat- bed golf cart down the orchard row for the first application. On the flatbed of the cart, is a machine called a “scumby puffer”. It is a small gasoline powered motor that has a large metal hopper and a small meter attached. It disperses the pollen throughout the orchard, economically and precisely. He’ll do it again on those same trees in a couple of days, in the meantime we’ll keep an eye on the Robadas. The pear and cherry blossoms will come a little later. In spite of the warm winter it looks like we have a lot of blossoms on the trees. Now we’re doing what we can to assure a good fruit set.