The effect of distance from pollinizer varieties on the fruit set of apple, pear and sweet-cherry trees

In a dwarf-pyramid apple orchard, rows of Cox’s Orange Pippin adjacent to rows of Janies Grieve had greater initial and final fruit sets than rows between other Cox rows. Flowers on the south sides of trees tended to have a greater set of fruit than those on the north sides.

In a sweet-cherry orchard containing a block of five rows of Early Rivers with pollinizer rows on each side, most fruit was set on the two outside rows and least in the centre row. Trees in the outside rows set more fruit on their sides facing the pollinizers than on their far sides. In another sweet-cherry orchard, Frogmore trees set more fruit on their south sides than on the other parts.

In a dwarf pyramid orchard of Comice, the trees with one graft of Conference (every tenth tree) set more fruit than trees without a graft. However, the fruit set on Conference dwarf and standard trees (two orchards of each) did not differ with their distance from pollinizers.
RESP-4993