Fundamentals of Horticulture 2(1+1)

South Asian Institute of Rural and Agricultural Management

Problem of Unfruitfulness

In an orchard all the fruit trees do not bear equally or regularly and sometimes fail to flower and fruit
under similar conditions where another fruit tree bears heavily. This failure to set fruits may be
attributed to unfruitfulness. To understand the problem of unfruitfulness in orchards a familiarity with
following terms is necessary.

Fruit setting: It refers to initial growth of ovary and its associated parts after blossoming and taking it to
maturity.

Fruitfulness: It is the state of plant when it is not only capable of flowering and fruit setting but also
takes these fruits to maturity and inability to do so is unfruitfulness or barrenness.

Infertility: Ability of a plant not only to produce fruits but develop viable seeds and the inability to do
so is referred as sterility or infertility. All fertile plants are fruitful but all fruitful plants are not fertile
(Seedless fruits).

Self-fruitfulness: Ability of a plant to mature fruits after self-pollination.

Self-fertility: Capacity of a plant for the production of viable seeds after self-pollination.

We have known that ability of a plant to produce optimum crop is fruitfulness and the inability to
achieve this is referred to as unfruitfulness. This unfruitfulness is one of the serious problems of many
orchards and its causes need to be understood properly for effective control and obtaining economically
acceptable production level. The causes to this problem can be many and they have been broadly
grouped into two categories

(A) Internal factors

(B) External factors.

(A) Internal factors associated with unfruitfulness: There are a number of internal factors which are
associated with unfruitfulness or sterility. They have further been categorized into three major
categories, those are

1. Evolutionary tendencies.

2. Genetic influence.

3. Physiological factors.

1. Evolutionary tendencies: In the process of evolution, a number of situations may lead to imperfect
flowers or varied developmental periods leading to unfruitfulness unless suitable measures are adopted.

(i) Monoecious and Dioecious nature: A plant with stamens and carpels in different flowers on the
same plant is monoecious. E.g. Coconut, Arecanut, Pecan nut, Capri fig and Hazel. In monoecious fruit
 Fundamentals of Horticulture 2(1+1)
South Asian Institute of Rural and Agricultural Management

plants in general there is no or very little problem of pollination, fruit setting and fruitfulness.
Nevertheless, pollinators need to be ensured.
Plants which bear male and female flowers on different plants are known as dioecious. E.g.
Papaya, Date palm and Strawberry. Likewise a few varieties of plum produce too little pollen to call
them bisexual. Profuse flowering without fruit set in ornamental pomegranate is a result of their being
unisexual. A number of sex forms have been reported in papaya by different scientists. In case of figs
two types of flower clusters are borne namely staminate and pistillate flowers. In Capri fig staminate
flowers are borne near the eye and pistillate flowers are borne near the end. To ensure good fruit set,
retention of a few staminate trees (9:1) is essential as pollinizers.

(ii) Heterostyly: A condition in the flower where length of the style, relative to other parts of the flower,
differs in the flowers of different plants. In this case in some flowers styles are short with long filaments
and in some of the flowers of some species or varieties styles are long with short filaments. Thus styles
and stigmas at different height prevent self-pollination.
In case of brinjal there are 4 types of flowers according to their length of style i.e. long, medium,
pseudo short and true short. Out of these pseudo short and true short do not produce any fruit. Similarly
in delicious group of apples extreme upright positions of the stamens accompanied by spreaded petals
do not permit bees to do pollination while collecting nectar. When the pistils of heterostyled plants are
pollinated with pollen from the same flowers or from other flowers containing stamens of an equal
height the union may be fruitful but it is likely to be of varying degree of sterility. Here arrangement for
cross pollination needs to be created.

(iii) Dichogamy: When stigmatic receptivity period does not coincides with pollen viability in
monoecious plants it is known as dichogamy. In dichogamy self-pollination is prevented in perfect
flowered plants, due to maturity of two sex elements at different times. If the stamens ripe before the
stigmas become receptive the flowers are known as protoandrous and if stigmas become receptive
before the stamens produce viable pollens it is known as protogynous. This results in low production of
fruits. Protogyny is present in monoecious plants like walnuts, hazels, etc. whereas protandry is present
in many coconut varieties. Majority of dioecious plants are also protogynous.

(iv) Abortive Flowers or aborted pistils or ovules: This occurs in the developing flower’s pistils and
stigmas of many species and is responsible for failure in fruit setting. Abortion of partially developed
flower buds is common. Setting and maturity of two sexes depend on the erosion of two properly formed
sex cells. Any interference with their development and functioning may lead to sterility or
unfruitfulness; such things can be observed in some grape varieties and tomato varieties. The late
flowers of strawberry cluster are always abortive. This is more common in indeterminate type of plants.
Degeneration of pistils takes the form of abortion and it is more common in ornamental pomegranate.
Certain olive varieties have 10-60% abortive embryos. It is also common in some apple varieties.
Embryo sac abortion becomes a cause of seedlessness in certain instances than fruitfulness.

(v) Impotence of pollen - Many varieties of grapes produce non viable or impotent pollens though they
appear as perfect flowers. Sterility in grape varieties was the result of impotent pollens. Sterile pollen in
 Fundamentals of Horticulture 2(1+1)
South Asian Institute of Rural and Agricultural Management

the grape results from degeneration processes in the generative nucleus or arrested development prior to
mitosis in the microspore nucleus. This is also common in ‘J.H. Hale peach, Washington Navel orange
and ‘Tahiti’ lime.

2. Genetic influences
Self sterility is a condition determined by the inheritance received but can develop in favourable
environment. Self sterility affects it’s off springs as well as hybrids .

(i) Sterility and unfruitfulness due to hybridity:

Generally wider the crossing, greater is the degree of sterility encountered. The cross between peach and
plum bears abundance of flowers but they are without pistils with malformed stamens. Flower
characteristics were constant sterile and barren. A hybrid between the pear and the quince was seedless.
Most of the citranges (cross between sweet orange and Citrus trifoliata) produce no fertile female
gametes. Seedlessness in most of the banana and pineapple varieties is due to hybrid nature of their
ancestors. Most of the triploid apple varieties produce aborted pollen. A number of hybrids between
Vitis rotundifolia and Euvitis are completely sterile. Similar was the case with hybridization of Vitis
vinifera and Vitis rotundifolia.

(ii) Incompatibility - One of the most common causes of self unfruitfulness and self sterility is due to
incompatibility between the pollen and ovules of the same plant or of the same variety. Pollen and
ovules are fertile but they fail to affect conjugation. In apple, pear, plum and aonla self incompatible
varieties require another pollinizer varieties for fruit setting. Self incompatibility has been reported in
some of the mango varieties like ‘Langra’, ‘Dashehari’ and ‘Chausa’.
Self sterility and self unfruitfulness has been reported in apple, pears, plums, almond, apricot, the
Clementine’ mandarins, may be attributed to incompatibility where normal processes of fertilization
fails somewhere between production of functional gametes and the fusion of sex cells.

3. Physiological influences:
(I) Slow pollen tube growth:
Slow growth of the pollen tube results in unfruitfulness. Differences have been found in the rate of
growth in selfed and crossed apples, pears, cherries and certain citrus fruits. This may be considered one
type of incompatibility due to chemotropic or hormone influences.

Besides this, fertilization should take place within a short time failing which abscission will take place at
the base of the style, ovary pedicel or peduncle and fruit setting does not take place.

(ii) Premature or delayed pollination:

Premature or delayed pollination leads to unfruitfulness. Tobacco flowers are very susceptible to injury
from premature pollination. When mature pollen grains are applied to immature pistils they germinate,
penetrate the style, enter the ovule and if the ovules are not ready for fertilization the flowers fall.
However, in case of oranges premature pollination did nothave any deleterious effect whereas some
 Fundamentals of Horticulture 2(1+1)
South Asian Institute of Rural and Agricultural Management

injury was noticed in tomato. Lower setting due to premature pollination was noticed in persimmon,
Pear, plum and peach.
Similarly, if pollination is delayed the flowers fall without setting. Delay in pollination for 1 or 2
days did not affect fruit set. However, further delaying may result into polyembryonic seeds in some
species.

(iii) Nutritive Condition of Plant:

Nutritive condition of plant just before or at or and just after the time of blossoming is an important
factor determining the percentage of flowers carrying for setting and for maturity. It may affect the
pollen viability or fertility of pistils.

a. Effect on pollen viability - There was significant difference in germination percentage of pollen
collected from old apple trees and from strong young trees of the same variety.

b. Effect on defectiveness of pistils: Exhaustion of tree by over bearing, drought or poverty of soil
leads to production of defective pistils. Over bearing weakens the fruit tree and in coming season
production is adversely affected. Close correlation was reported between defective pistils and
unfruitfulness in American plums.
In case of Vitis vinifera carbohydrate deficiency is the common cause of flower drop. Due to
carbohydrate deficiency flower abortion and ultimately unfruitfulness also occur in green house grown
tomatoes.

(iv) Fruit setting of flowers in different positions:

Fruits borne on terminal growth have more competition in many fruit crops and mature and set under
normal nutritional conditions but percentage of set is small. This positional competition takes place
between fruits and branch as well as between different fruits influencing fruitfulness.

Strong and weak spurs - Nutritional condition of spurs has positive correlation with fruit setting in
apple. Spurs on vigorous limbs with large leaves set more fruits than those borne on weak limbs. More
flowers ultimately lead to more fruit set and more flowers are generally borne on strong limbs. Likewise
flowers borne singly set fruits and mature as fruit and majority of those borne in clusters drop down.
 Ringing or girdling also lead to accumulation of an extra store of food material leads to fruitset
and develop parthenocarpically.
 In the process of fruitifications the embryo is more important for development i.e. if nutritive
condition is favourable, it accompanies the development of the seed coat and fruit wall, if not,
only the latter portions are in high degree retardation in development. Under insufficient nutrient
supply the number of seed forming ovules are diminished and under extreme nutrition deficiency
both fruit wall and large number of ovules are diminished leading to enabling to form seed.
 In case of greenhouse cucumbers, nutritional deficiency leads to arrest of growth of growing
fruits depending upon the position of the fruits and time of pollination. If a few of the cucumbers
are harvested remaining fruits resume growth.
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South Asian Institute of Rural and Agricultural Management

 In case of strawberries producing bisexual flowers may lead to produce pistillate flowers if
nutritional deficiency was observed. However, nutritive condition has indirect influence on
compatibility.
B. Unfruitfulness associated with external factors

1. Nutrient supply: In certain families like graminae, cruciferae and leguminaceae sterility normally
occur due to over feeding. ‘Jonathan’ apple self-sterile in rich soil becomes self-fertile in poor soils.
High fertility level is generally associated with good pistil development and low level with poor pistils
and good stamens in grapes. In olives low fertility leads to partial or complete degeneration of pistils.

2. Pruning and Training: Pruning tends to produce more true hermophrodite condition in grape variety
‘Hope’. If pruning is not done the variety tends to remain sterile and produces aborted pistils.

3. Locality: Jonathan apple which is sterile in one location is reported to be self-fertile in another
location.

4. Season: Hybrid grape ‘Ideal’ is self-impotent early in season but becomes self-potent later on.

5. Temperature: High temperature at flowering dries up stigmatic secretion and prevents pollination.
Tomato varieties grown at high temperature do not produce any fruit.

6. Light: Exposure of strawberry plants to long photoperiod results in development of stamens and
pistils in strawberry flowers.

7. Pests and diseases: Mango hopper, powdery mildew, etc. adversely affect the fruit set and
development in mango and grape.
Spraying the trees when they are in bloom i.e. spraying at flowering reduces fruit set. Some of
the fungicides gave inhibitory effect on pollen grains i.e. copper fungicides at 200 to 10000 ppm prevent
the germination of pollen grains on the stigma.

Steps to overcome the problem of unfruitfulness:

Having known that there could be many reasons for unfruitfulness, it is necessary to make necessary
corrective measures which should begin from planning level and extend to an established orchard.

(i) Choice of the crop and variety should be made on the basis of climatic and edaphic conditions of the
site of orcharding.

(ii) Provision of windbreak and shelter belts for areas prone to wind damage.

(iii) Before planting an orchard soil should be brought to optimity by incroporating organic matter,
amendments and nutrients based on soil analysis.

(iv) In case of problems of pollination due to heterostyly, dichogamy incompatibility, sterility, embryo
abortion, hybridity, etc. a mixture of varieties should be grown by introduction effective pollinizer
varieties and pollinators (Honey bees).
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South Asian Institute of Rural and Agricultural Management

(v) Unfruitfulness due to slow growth of pollen tube, premature and delayed pollination, use of plant
regulators can be affected after standardization in terms of chemical concentration and timing of
application.

(vi) The problem due to old age could be overcome by replanting or rejuvenation of old trees.

(vii) Problem due to overbearing can be managed through thinning at appropriate stage.

(viii) Irrigation management would be key role in situations with drought and waterlogged conditions.

(ix) Problem due to uneven distribution of flowers on tree should be managed through thinning and crop
regulation.

(x) Maintenance of critical nutrient status in tree leaves for optimum crop production by adopting
correct nutritional programme based on plant and soil analysis.

(xi) In crops requiring regular pruning standard practices will have to be adopted based on crop, variety
and its phenology.

(xii) Unfruitfulness due to pathogens should be managed through effective plant protection measures
following integrated approach.

(xiii) Problem of unfruitfulness due to tendency of alternate bearing should be over come through
replacement of regular bearing varieties and crop regulation.

It is important to analyse the problem and then corrective measures should be suggested. Basically the
planning should be so done that future is problem free and then should be followed by adoption of
correct package of practices.