The Accidental Smallholder Forum

Growing => Fruit => Topic started by: Piggerswiggers on July 15, 2016, 11:32:50 am

Title: Is anyone else seeing low stone fruit yields this year?
Post by: Piggerswiggers on July 15, 2016, 11:32:50 am
I've just been mooching about my cherries, plums, gages and damsons and it looks like an appalling yield this year. All the trees look hale and hearty but next to no fruit. There were lots of cherries forming but the ground around them is now covered by under developed, unripe cherries that have fallen off and I think this is due to lack of pollination, certainly the couple I broke open this am don't have stones in them.

This makes me think that maybe there was a shortage of pollination insects doing their thing during the wet and windy Spring we had here.

Strawberries, raspberries, black currants, blue berries and gooseberries are great and apples look to be doing OK so far but nothing with a stone. As far as I can remember there were plenty of flowers on the trees, l do think I'd have noticed an absence of flower anyway.

I'd be interested to hear whether anyone else has a similar picture this year.
Title: Re: Is anyone else seeing low stone fruit yields this year?
Post by: Fleecewife on July 15, 2016, 11:42:34 am
Yep - hardly any plums, golden gage, damsons, cherries, although the wild cherries in the hedge are not bad.  The golden gage are a surprise as the tree is usually bowed down with fruit. All were covered with blossom in spring, but we did have some frosts which I had been hoping hadn't damaged the blossom.
Title: Re: Is anyone else seeing low stone fruit yields this year?
Post by: Q on July 15, 2016, 05:50:20 pm
I have just been eating the first few ripe cherries but I agree - hardly anything on the cherries and plums compared to last year.
Now thinking the year before that was quite poor so I may have been spoilt by a bumper year last year.
Title: Re: Is anyone else seeing low stone fruit yields this year?
Post by: Lesley Silvester on July 16, 2016, 12:54:41 am
Mine are poor as well. A few plums on one tree. There are cherries but not that many and those are small.
Title: Re: Is anyone else seeing low stone fruit yields this year?
Post by: sabrina on July 28, 2016, 10:34:21 am
I had loads of flowers on my three apple trees but no sign of any apples. I am thinking this is down to the cold May and June we had. Just about everything in my veg plot is way behind. My leeks look as if they are not long planted. Things in the pollytunnel are doing much better. I feel as if all my hard work planting outside has been a waste of time. This is the 2nd year we have had very poor results due to water logged ground and cold weather. No sign of butterflies and very few bees.
Title: Re: Is anyone else seeing low stone fruit yields this year?
Post by: Victorian Farmer on July 28, 2016, 11:22:51 am
This is the fruit crop in France triying to protect the fruit.
Title: Re: Is anyone else seeing low stone fruit yields this year?
Post by: Steph Hen on July 29, 2016, 04:50:02 pm
Plum tree is laden for first time in about 5 years and been nibbling the wild cherries. No apples, but that's because goats hammered the saplings!  :goat:
Title: Re: Is anyone else seeing low stone fruit yields this year?
Post by: Possum on July 29, 2016, 09:35:00 pm
Cherries have been fine, but very few plums. Many that we do have are rotting on the tree. I suspect it is all the damp weather we have been having. Oh for a long hot spell...................................
Title: Re: Is anyone else seeing low stone fruit yields this year?
Post by: waterbuffalofarmer on July 29, 2016, 11:24:39 pm
Well our damsons, we have tons upon tons every year, I don't know what the situation is like this year, I haven't looked but will soon and report back  :thinking:
Title: Re: Is anyone else seeing low stone fruit yields this year?
Post by: Lesley Silvester on July 30, 2016, 12:06:36 am
On the other hand, my jostaberry is a mass of fruit. Also a mass of sparrows tucking in.
Title: Re: Is anyone else seeing low stone fruit yields this year?
Post by: devonlady on July 30, 2016, 10:45:44 am
Go to a toy shop and buy a couple of rubber snakes. Put them on your bushes/canes and move them every night, they will keep birds off your fruit, guaranteed!
Title: Re: Is anyone else seeing low stone fruit yields this year?
Post by: Q on July 30, 2016, 03:05:56 pm
Go to a toy shop and buy a couple of rubber snakes. Put them on your bushes/canes and move them every night, they will keep birds off your fruit, guaranteed!
I will have to try that -  Just a question though - do I warn the OH when she comes to pick the raspberries or do I just film it?   :innocent:
Title: Re: Is anyone else seeing low stone fruit yields this year?
Post by: Lesley Silvester on July 31, 2016, 12:04:07 am
Go to a toy shop and buy a couple of rubber snakes. Put them on your bushes/canes and move them every night, they will keep birds off your fruit, guaranteed!


Now there's an idea.  :idea:



I will have to try that -  Just a question though - do I warn the OH when she comes to pick the raspberries or do I just film it?   :innocent:


Naughty.   ;D