A fruit tree that flowers beautifully every spring and sets nothing is almost always a pollination problem. There are four mechanisms behind it, and knowing which one applies lets you reason about any cultivar — including the ones GrowingHQ does not hold.
Where the partner answers are
Each of the 80 cultivars GrowingHQ holds carries a computed partner list on its own page: of the cultivars in this catalogue, which will pollinate it, which will not, and which return no verdict because a flowering group is not recorded on one side.
There is deliberately no box to type a cultivar name into. 80 records against several thousand in cultivation means such a form would answer “not in our data” for most readers, and the times it did answer would imply a coverage that does not exist. A computed list can only contain answers that exist, and states its own boundary in the heading. That is the difference.
What follows is the part that generalises: the mechanism behind every answer, which lets you reason about a cultivar nobody has catalogued.
The plant sets a full crop with its own pollen and needs no partner at all. This is why soft fruit is so much simpler than tree fruit — a single blackcurrant, gooseberry or raspberry crops perfectly well.
A real third state rather than a hedge. The plant sets some fruit alone — often smaller or misshapen — and a compatible partner substantially increases both the quantity and the quality.
Cultivars are numbered by when they flower: apples 1 (earliest) to 7 (latest), pears 1 to 4. Two cultivars pollinate each other if they are in the same group or in adjacent ones, because pollen has to be available while the other is in flower. It follows that an early cultivar and a late one cannot help each other however compatible they otherwise are.
Triploid cultivars produce little viable pollen. They can be pollinated but cannot pollinate, so a triploid needs TWO other cultivars: one to pollinate it, and a second to pollinate the first. A grower with a Bramley and one other apple usually has an unproductive pair and no idea why, because most guidance says only that apples need a partner.
A genetic mechanism with nothing to do with flowering time. Sweet cherries carry S-alleles, and two cultivars sharing a group cannot fertilise each other however well they overlap — they will flower together year after year and set nothing.
Stella is self-fertile and pollinates every other sweet cherry regardless of group, which is why the self-fertile cultivars transformed cherry growing in gardens. If you do not know what your cherry is, this is the answer.
The single most-missed fact in garden fruit growing, and the one that costs a grower a decade of poor crops from two trees that look perfectly healthy.
Across the whole catalogue, at species level. Individual cultivars vary, and where GrowingHQ holds them the plant's own page says so.
| Fruit | Self-fertility | Partner | Partners needed |
|---|---|---|---|
| Apple | Needs a pollination partnersourceSourced guidancehigh confidence A few cultivars are partially self-fertile, but the group is treated as needing a partner.
Checked 2026-08-13 | A compatible partner is requiredsourceSourced guidancehigh confidence
Checked 2026-08-13 | one |
| Apricot | Self-fertilesourceSourced guidancehigh confidence
Checked 2026-08-13 | No partner neededsourceSourced guidancehigh confidence
Checked 2026-08-13 | none |
| Blackberry | Self-fertilesourceSourced guidancehigh confidence
Checked 2026-08-13 | No partner neededsourceSourced guidancehigh confidence
Checked 2026-08-13 | none |
| Blackcurrant | Self-fertilesourceSourced guidancehigh confidence
Checked 2026-08-13 | No partner neededsourceSourced guidancehigh confidence
Checked 2026-08-13 | none |
| Blueberry | Partly self-fertilesourceSourced guidancehigh confidence A single bush crops, but two different CULTIVARS flowering together produce more and larger fruit — one of the clearest cases where a partner is worth having without being required, and the reason blueberries are usually sold in pairs.
Checked 2026-08-13 | Crops better with a partnersourceSourced guidancehigh confidence
Checked 2026-08-13 | one |
| Cherry | Self-fertileSourced guidanceDepends on conditionshigh confidenceApplies when: True of the cultivars now sold for gardens — 'Stella', 'Sunburst', 'Morello'. Many older sweet cherries are self-sterile and carry S-allele incompatibility groups, where two cultivars in the same group cannot pollinate each other however well they overlap in flowering.
Checked 2026-08-13 | No partner neededSourced guidanceDepends on conditionshigh confidenceApplies when: For the self-fertile cultivars. An older self-sterile cultivar needs a partner from a different incompatibility group.
Checked 2026-08-13 | none |
| Fig | Self-fertilesourceSourced guidancehigh confidence The cultivars grown in Britain — 'Brown Turkey' and similar — set fruit without pollination at all. The fig wasp that pollinates figs in warmer regions does not occur here and is not needed.
Checked 2026-08-13 | No partner neededsourceSourced guidancehigh confidence
Checked 2026-08-13 | none |
| Gooseberry | Self-fertilesourceSourced guidancehigh confidence
Checked 2026-08-13 | No partner neededsourceSourced guidancehigh confidence
Checked 2026-08-13 | none |
| Grape | Self-fertilesourceSourced guidancehigh confidence
Checked 2026-08-13 | No partner neededsourceSourced guidancehigh confidence
Checked 2026-08-13 | none |
| Loganberry | Self-fertilesourceSourced guidancehigh confidence
Checked 2026-08-13 | No partner neededsourceSourced guidancehigh confidence
Checked 2026-08-13 | none |
| Melon | Self-fertilesourceSourced guidancehigh confidence
Checked 2026-08-13 | No partner neededsourceSourced guidancehigh confidence
Checked 2026-08-13 | none |
| Peach | Self-fertilesourceSourced guidancehigh confidence
Checked 2026-08-13 | No partner neededsourceSourced guidancehigh confidence
Checked 2026-08-13 | none |
| Pear | Needs a pollination partnersourceSourced guidancehigh confidence 'Conference' is partially self-fertile and is the common exception.
Checked 2026-08-13 | A compatible partner is requiredsourceSourced guidancehigh confidence
Checked 2026-08-13 | one |
| Plum | Self-fertileSourced guidanceDepends on conditionshigh confidenceApplies when: True of the common garden cultivars — 'Victoria', 'Czar', 'Marjorie's Seedling'. Some gages and older cultivars are self-sterile and do need a partner, so it is worth checking the specific cultivar.
Checked 2026-08-13 | No partner neededsourceSourced guidancehigh confidence
Checked 2026-08-13 | none |
| Quince | Self-fertilesourceSourced guidancehigh confidence
Checked 2026-08-13 | No partner neededsourceSourced guidancehigh confidence
Checked 2026-08-13 | none |
| Raspberry | Self-fertilesourceSourced guidancehigh confidence
Checked 2026-08-13 | No partner neededsourceSourced guidancehigh confidence
Checked 2026-08-13 | none |
| Redcurrant | Self-fertilesourceSourced guidancehigh confidence
Checked 2026-08-13 | No partner neededsourceSourced guidancehigh confidence
Checked 2026-08-13 | none |
| Rhubarb | Self-fertilesourceSourced guidancehigh confidence Academic here — the crop is the leaf stalk, and flowering is something to prevent rather than encourage.
Checked 2026-08-13 | No partner neededsourceSourced guidancehigh confidence
Checked 2026-08-13 | none |
| Strawberry | Self-fertilesourceSourced guidancehigh confidence
Checked 2026-08-13 | No partner neededsourceSourced guidancehigh confidence
Checked 2026-08-13 | none |
| Tayberry | Self-fertilesourceSourced guidancehigh confidence
Checked 2026-08-13 | No partner neededsourceSourced guidancehigh confidence
Checked 2026-08-13 | none |
| Whitecurrant | Self-fertilesourceSourced guidancehigh confidence
Checked 2026-08-13 | No partner neededsourceSourced guidancehigh confidence
Checked 2026-08-13 | none |
3 of 21 need a partner. The rest crop alone, which is most of the argument for growing soft fruit in a small garden.
Enough to compute real answers and to demonstrate every rule above, and far too few to be a general reference. Each has its own page with a computed partner list; the summary here is by species.
| Fruit | Cultivars held | Self-fertile | Need a partner | Triploid |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Apple | 35 | 2 | 33 | 4 |
| Pear | 8 | 0 | 8 | — |
| Plum | 11 | 10 | 1 | — |
| Cherry | 7 | 5 | 2 | — |
| Peach | 2 | 2 | 0 | — |
| Apricot | 2 | 2 | 0 | — |
| Raspberry | 4 | 4 | 0 | — |
| Blackcurrant | 3 | 3 | 0 | — |
| Gooseberry | 2 | 2 | 0 | — |
| Strawberry | 4 | 4 | 0 | — |
| Blueberry | 2 | 0 | 2 | — |
Every cultivar, with season, use, keeping quality and partner requirement.
Take the commonest British case: somebody plants a ‘Bramley’s Seedling’ and one other apple, and gets very little fruit from either.
Cox's Orange Pippin and Bramley's Seedling: Cox's Orange Pippin will pollinate Bramley's Seedling, but not the other way round: Bramley's Seedling is triploid and produces little viable pollen. A third, diploid cultivar is needed so that Cox's Orange Pippin is pollinated too.
That is the engine’s own output, computed from the flowering groups and ploidy recorded on the two cultivars — not a sentence written for this page. Adding a third diploid cultivar in group 2, 3 or 4 completes the arrangement.
A tree with a correct partner can still set nothing. Frost during flowering blackens the centre of the flower; cold, wet or windy weather keeps insects grounded through the few days that matter; and a tree that is too young or has been fed heavily with nitrogen puts its resources into growth. Those look identical from a distance and are distinguished on the poor fruit set page.
Apple cultivars · Pear cultivars · Plum cultivars · Cherry cultivars · Peach cultivars · Apricot cultivars · Raspberry cultivars · Blackcurrant cultivars · Gooseberry cultivars · Strawberry cultivars · Blueberry cultivars