Manually polinate plum tree?

[Bob F]

I have a plum tree that is in full bloom. It's fruit is vary large reddish yellow plums 3" long when ripe. Usually, it gets a dozen or two fruit on it, but one year I harvested 80 pounds of plums from it.

Here in Seattle, the spring has been cold and damp. There is no sign of any bees. I am wondering if there is some way of pollinating the tree manually, perhaps be tapping a branch from my neighbor's small fruit plum or my italian prune trees against it's blooms. Does anyone have any knowledge about this they could assist me with?

[David Hare-Scott]

Plums are almost always pollinated by bees, there is little or no wind pollination apparently. Some are self fertile, others are not and some in between. The other trees might or might not be a pollinator for yours. I don't know how you are going to transfer the pollen at the right time as the flowers don't reach maturity simultaneously, although the numbers are on your side as you only need a little pollen on each flower and only a small proportion need to be pollinated to get a good crop.

David