hand pollinating an apple tree to produe fruit?

Stressica

I bought 2 apple trees recently, both a 1yr old small ish treese (about 1.5m-2 at a guess)

Lady at garden centre said they probably wont produce fruit this year because of pollination, whereas they might in the garden centre because of the sheer number of them there..

Can one hand pollinate them like has to be done with some fruits in order for them to produce fruit or would it be a case of they not being old enough yet?, Im planning on getting a few more soon, Thanks.

rje66

Stressica wrote: »

I bought 2 apple trees recently, both a 1yr old small ish treese (about 1.5m-2 at a guess)

Lady at garden centre said they probably wont produce fruit this year because of pollination, whereas they might in the garden centre because of the sheer number of them there..

Can one hand pollinate them like has to be done with some fruits in order for them to produce fruit or would it be a case of they not being old enough yet?, Im planning on getting a few more soon, Thanks.

If they flower the bees should pollinate them

genuine leather

Hey stressica
Will they be planted in the ground or container grown?
My thinking, the fact that they are young would be not to let any blossom form this year(maybe one or two to taste),but get them planted in enriched soil/ground and let the plants energy concentrate on establishing a good strong root system rather than into fruit production.
With my apple trees(trained against wall) i will thin out quite a few growing fruit spurs/small fruits to try balance fruit production with size of tree.
Some people find that their fruit trees give a biennial crop(Lots last year none this year).The reason i feel this is, if a tree produces an abundance of fruit one season, it will struggle to do the same the following year with all the energy it has used for the previous.
This works well for me, other situations may vary.
Although last season was very poor because of the very cold wet spring,and not enough pollinators active.
Hope this helps
GL

Stressica

Yeah i see you're point there, I guess it never struck with me that they would be very young trees, but they were in large pots, have they now secured in the ground about 2m apart from each other.

I spose it would be nice, if they did produce biennually, to have 2 different groups, so while onne group is 'resting' the others produce fruit.

My eventually aim is though to have pear/apple/ and plum trees so i can grow as much as i can and be relativley sufficient for at least some part of the year.

They are about 1m or slightly more out from the wall, i could train them into an arch kinda thing.