Hi,

My father has a Robinson tree garden, he has 1500 trees.You know, Robinson is self-incompatible so he also has Fremont trees as pollinizers.

He's been told that he needs to plant a pollinizer tree row for 7 main tree rows, so he has a garden as shown in figure below;



Now, I believe this was not the best option.Also, many people says that much pollinizer is too much, not necessary.So my father wants to replace some of the fremont trees with Robinson trees.But we are not sure how many trees do we need as pollinizer.

I have the book; "Citrus Growing in Florida".It is written;

Quote:

The pollinizer trees should be placed no further than two rows from the primary trees to allow for effective bee movement and pollination"

So I made a scheme according to this info, not for our garden but a general sceheme;



Is it true?

This scheme is not suitable for us now since we already have 7 rows without any pollinizer.

We have 30 trees in a row and 50 rows in total.So, how many trees should we leave in a row as pollinizer, what do you think?

Another quote from the book that I don't understand very much;

Quote:

Typical schemes include:the pollnizer placed every fourth row (1:3); in groups of two rows( particularly where double beds are used); or every other row (1:1).In some cases, pollinizers are placed within the row about every third tree.

One final note, until now, our yield/crop was wonderful, the point is Fremont fruit is not worth much money.

Thanks,

Your scheme looks to put a Robinson tree within two trees of a pollinator tree. The only draw back with your scheme, if there is one, with the trees scattered, harvesting would be more difficult, than if the trees were all in a row, especially if the pollinator trees were a good selling commercial variety. A good pollinator tree, of course, has to be cross compatible with the main variety, and a pollinator tree should produce large amounts of pollen, have the same bloom period as the main variety, flower every year, be as cold tolerant as the main variety, and produce commercially marketable fruit. There are two other citrus varieties that meet all of the above qualifications, as pollinators for Robinson : Orlando and Sunburst. Temple would also meets all the qualification, except one: It is more sensitive to freeze damage than Robinson. - Millet

Thanks a lot for your reply Millet,

Millet wrote:

The only draw back with your scheme, if there is one, with the trees scattered, harvesting would be more difficult, than if the trees were all in a row, especially if the pollinator trees were a good selling commercial variety.

Unfortunately, Fremont is not a good selling commercial variety.Actually, it is a good variety but there is not much tree so the foxy buyers always want to get their fruit for free

Anyway, fremont is a very good pollinizer for Robinson, it works very well, so replacing pollinizer trees with another pollinizer variety is out of question.
I just want to replace some of them with the primary variety, Robinson.
I believe there are more pollinizer trees than necessary , but I am not sure how many trees can be removed within safe limits.

Thanks again,

Your scheme looks good to me. Although your scheme has about 1/2 as many pollinator trees, many more of the Robinson trees are much closer to a pollinator in your system than in the present system. Maybe Dr. Manners will also reply with his thoughts on the matter. - Millet