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Crosses
Apple History

Visit the PRI site for information on scab resistant apples. We have searchable databases for apple germplasm, progeny numbers, and field evaluations.

Crossing Apples

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Pollen collection

Use a canning jar to collect pollen. Replace the lid with a circular piece of hardware cloth. We use hardware cloth with 1/8 inch mesh.

Collect unopened blossoms, balloon stage works best, and grate them over the hardware cloth so that the anthers fall into the jar. Rinse the jar with ethanol if you use it to collect pollen from different cultivars.

Spread anthers out to dry. Store the pollen in a sealed container in the freezer until use.

Emasculation and pollination

Select one (or two) unopened bud per flower cluster. Larger buds are easier to emasculate. Bend and crack the receptacle just below the calyx (sepals). Some people cut the receptacle with their thumb or finger nail. Pull off the calyx, corolla, and stamens, leaving the pistil.

With the petals removed the flower is not likely to attract bees and won't be pollinated. You can pollinate as you go, pull off the rest of the flowers in that cluster and put pollen on the emasculated flower, or you can emasculate the entire tree and then come back and pollinate. Remove all the other flowers in the cluster except one which is left as a flag.

When you are finished emasculating, find the flagged clusters, apply pollen to the stigmas of the emasculated flowers with your finger tip. Remove the flag from each cluster as you go.

Remember to rinse the pollen from you hands with ethanol if you are making more than one cross.

Seed collection

In the fall collect fruit after seeds have matured but before fruit has dropped. Crossed fruit can be distinguished by the characteristic appearance of the calyx end. Sepals were removed during emasculation.

Extract seeds and plant outside in the fall or stratify before planting in the spring.