Pollination of Fruit Trees

The common fruit trees of Europe - apples, pears, cherries, plums and so on - don't have boy and girl trees.
Each flower has male and female parts: for fruit to be made, the female parts must receive pollen from the male parts of another flower.

In most cases, this means that a fruit tree needs a pollination partner.
This is another tree of the same general type (i.e. apple trees pollinate other apple trees) but of a different variety (i.e. a Cox apple tree won't pollinate other Coxs).

There is one important detail: the two trees must be in flower at about the same time.

There are 3 types of fruit tree when it comes to pollination:

• Self-fertile trees - these will pollinate themselves and cross-pollinate other trees that are in flower at the same time.
• Pollinators - most fruit trees fall into this group. They can't pollinate themselves, but will cross-pollinate other trees that are in flower at the same time.
• Triploids - these kinky trees need a 3-way arrangement, since they can't pollinate themselves or other trees. This means that you need another tree to pollinate the triploid tree and a third tree to cross-pollinate with that one.