Pollination will be fine. 20 ft seems kinda close for standards and would only take up about 150 feet. If you have 200 ft spread them out as far as you can on that line. Where did you get the trees? What are they sweet or sour cherry? A lot of sweet need a pollinator.

trees are comin from a local nersery

i will spread em the whole 200 ft standard apples are 20ft in row and 30 between rows according to the local extension

I think you may be making a mistake buying pairs of same varieties. First of all, Bartlett needs another compatible (not Seckel) pear variety for reliable polination in most climates.

Who the heck needs 2 RD and 2 YD trees on seedling rootstocks unless you want to go in business selling slightly retro apples. I recommend that you get at least 2 other varieties although probably to most tastes on this forum you should just ditch RD. It is the most widely detested apple by apple connesseurs.

But if you love both these varieties, that's all that matters, however, they bear at similar times and RD is only good(?) for fresh eating. These trees will eventually bear hundreds and hundreds of pounds of fruit if they are managed well. What is the point of having to deal with this much fruit all at once, and why wouldn't you want different kinds of apples?

It is a rare all-purpose nursery that can be useful as a site for purchasing fruit trees- selection is bad and the the level of fruit plant knowledge is usually worse.

ahhhhhhhhhhhh where do i start.... hmmmmmmmmmm

i am glad you responded to my question thank you

the bartlett pare is a self pollinator always has been

who needs 2 rd and 2 yd.............I do.
i have a 18 acre vegetable farm in a rural community i sell large quantities of vegetables at several local farmers markets theese variety of apple are what peaple around here eat im not selling to apple connesseurs im selling to old rednecks that grew up with these apples and will buy nothing els they only buy peaches and cream sweet corn which is by far not the best and they like there apples rd and gd thats what they like thats what i will grow them i have more than enough room for em and if i want a differant apple down the road i will get onethanks for your concern but my question had nothing to do with anything you wrote

good day

Always has been, huh. Maybe where you are, but you didn't mention your location. I could refer you to research on Bartlett production but you are obviously not interested in my input, except maybe as an opportunity to dish some abuse, but that's OK. Maybe I offended you sometime past here.

I realize, of course, that your question was not what I was answering. How could I have guessed that someone interested in small commercial production would be willing to wait for standards to bear? Or would buy from a local nursery?

I just assumed you were a beginner who maybe needed some help and didn't know enough to ask. Certainly does no harm to try to be helpful, even if you risk slightly irritating someone.

I think you'll find that Bartlet is not self-pollinating by anyone's definition, try looking around the internet. http://www.starkbros.com/access?action=product&productID=1388&collection=0

If you want these for selling you should reconsider the standard choice. You won't be selling fruits that require taking a 20 foot fall after they've played Plinko through the branches and have done all that only after they are ripe enough to fall in the first place. It's also nearly impossible to spray a standard besides pick them.
I also don't think the USDA or FDA (can't remember which) allows you to sell drops unless it happens that a customer at a U-Pick selects the drop. I know you can't use drops for retail cider production.

If you want them for selling you should consider a row of each variety. That way when one needs sprayed, pruned, picked or anything else you can treat the whole row in the same manner. That way if you decide you want more of that variety you can add them to the row.
Intermixing varieties and fruit types will keep you from being able to spray when you need to.

You are correct, for selling you pretty much have to have RD and GD. And even for personal growth I can imagine since a lot of people buy those a lot of people would grow those, that's what my niece wanted to start with.
I'm withholding my previous condemnation for anything with a Delicious name until I get around to trying a couple I got while at the U-pick, but they had rows and rows of dwarf RD and GD.
As far as needing multiples of those for any reason other than selling, I got 50lbs off each of my smallish espaliers. Now that I have commercial dwarfs fresh in my head to compare to my 50lb trees I can imagine normally pruned dwarfs producing the claimed 5 bushels I've seen at many places other than this forum where there are a lot of people who go overboard on thinning IMO. Even 50lbs is a lot to work up unless you're making cider, which those two aren't really cider apples. Since those are fresh eating apples 50lbs is quite a bit to store, and remember we're taking more like 5 times as much from one dwarf.

For selling at a farmer's market you will probably do better with a basket of RD, a basket of GD, a basket of Fuji, a basket of Honeycrisp, etc.
That way people will pick up a half dozen of their favorites, RD and GD and then grab a few of the others to try. Especially if you do your job and actually sell them. You do give people a sample to get them to buy don't you? Imagine what's going to happen when you give them a taste of something better than their RD/GD, and there are plenty that are much better.
I assume you're not going to the farmer's market just to sell apples. Varieties stretched through the summer into late fall would also net you a better income over only 2 varieties that ripen all at once. When their RD and GDs aren't in season people will pick up something else. When an apple eater stops by to get your cream corn and they see some Yellow Transparent they will pick some up.

I think long before you even dig a hole you need to check into some commercial apple operations. I seem to know way more about it than you do and it's only a pie in the sky retirement dream for me that will never happen.
Harvestman was correct in assuming you weren't talking about commercial production because nothing you said previously even hinted that you had any inkling of what commercial production or sales entails.

Mykl, you might find this interesting. If a location has consistantly warm springs, Bartlett can bear consistantly without a pollinizer or apparently even a pollinator (That's an inside joke. I'm playing off another recent thread).

They are not technically self-fertile, but in the right weather they do bear seedless fruit and quite productively. The word, which you may know and I hope I have right is parthenocarpic.

In Southern Ca. there was once a Bartlett industry where the pears were grown in solid blocks. Even here, in the northeast, if we get a nice mild spring, Bartletts will bear all by themselves. Wouldn't want to have to count on that kind of weather though.

According to Norman Childer in his book "Modern Fruit Science" which I memorized much of the preceding info from, Comice and Hardy are also capable of parthenocarpic production (I just looked it up before writing this last paragraph and I did get it right. Hooray!).

Aren't fruit trees wonderful?

"(That's an inside joke. I'm playing off another recent thread).

I almost said that they weren't self-pollinating, they needed bees, and left it at that. :)

Back to your original question, your apple trees will be close enough together to cross pollinate regardless of the order you plant them in. Honey bees will fly up to several miles to get nectar and pollen, although they will prefer the nearer sources over those further away. Still, even if planted at the ends of the 200 ft. rows, they would be close enough to get good cross pollination and good crops.

I happen to really like Red Delicious and I detest Yellow, although I've had tree ripened Reds and never had a Yellow that wasn't store bought. I still prefer the Reds over all the other varieties in the stores as the others all taste the same, lack sweetness, and have nothing unique in their flavor (what little there is) compared to the Reds. But, if I take real McIntosh fruit from a local tree, it is wonderful and is completely unrelated to what was in the store.

As you plant more apples, if you do, consider trying some trees of a different variety to improve interest in what you are selling, but try to find local apples of those varieties first to make sure you get flavors that your customers will like.

I have read that commercial growers have to be very careful with Red Delicious to get complete pollination, even in context of non self fertile varieties. Apparently it is one variety that needs very close proximity to a compatible pollinzer. The reference, once again, is Childers book, and I believe the info is probably accurate. Because I don't really worry about whether RD is pollinated or not I have no personal expereince to relate.

I manage many old strain RD here in NY state (often on standard root stock btw) and it is a rare season where I eat more than a single apple of this variety. I don't believe they reach their "potential" here and if you want a bland but sweet red, Gala works much better in the northeast IMO. I no longer have any first hand knowledge of store bought apples.

Nevertheless, if we are talking only about the distance between rows, pollination shouldn't be a problem if the pollenators are there, even for RD.

GD, unlike RD, is partially self-fetile, and doesn't need to be particularly close to another compatible variety.

I believe seedling trees could work commercially if you used one of the spur-type sports, by-the-way. Not that it would be optimum to produce highest quality fruit with the least possible labor or anything. I'm speaking about RD here.

Obviously, I am no longer throwing these things out there for the benefit of the original questioner, but for anyone else who has tuned in and finds the general discussion interesting. This is, after all,a forum, and not just a free info service functioning solely for the individuals posting questions. You don't get to own a thread, even if you start it.

I just have to say that the pear tree my grandfather planted nearly 50 years ago did not produce for many years because apparently the pollinator was removed. I hand pollinated it from another tree and, low and behold, the few pears I was able to pollinate were Bartlett.

When I questioned this on this forum I was told by "scottfsmith" that:

"according to the book "Pear Production and Handling", 2007, Bartlett is self-sterile but in California they can set fruit without pollination at all (parthenocarpic). It also mentions that this behavior seems to be limited to parts of California and Oregon"

I have grafted other varieties onto it now so that hopefully I will be able to get some fruit. My point is that one should not assume their Bartlett will be self-pollinating, even though many vendors state this.

I don't think it is in any way limited to Oregon and CA. It is just that warm springs are reliable enough there to count on this ability commercially. Here in NY I've seen Bartlett bear without a pollenizer (remember that word, milehigh, words are important to Lucky. For your tree, you were the pollinator) and I've often seen it fail.

Well, Tn Jed

Bartlett is sold as self-fertile. But like anything else, it will produce more with a pollinator close by. I can tell you honestly.my wife loves them but we have yet to get one off our tree. I planted a keifer (for pollination), mooglow and a Bartlett. And while the moonglow and keifer are going great guns, all the Bartlett has given me is fireblight. Would love to plant Comice, but fear the fireblight susceptibility.

As for apples, granny smith sells well tooÂÂjust a thought.

Best of luck on your venture.