I have two loquat trees in my backyard that I started from seed nearly six years ago. Last fall (2011) they had flowers for the first time, and now they're bearing fruit. The smaller of the two trees is losing the fruit, however. Much of it has turned yellow and is falling off the tree with a two or three inch stem still firmly attached. The fallen fruit is small, no bigger than a large marble, and has no seeds. Some of the fruit still on the tree is larger, nearly the size of a ping-pong ball, but still contains no seeds. The larger tree on the other side of the yard is behaving differently. Although much of the fruit appears stunted, it's all still green and none has fallen off. I haven't cut one of these open to see if there are seeds. Other than this, the trees seem reasonably healthy. Some of the leaves occasionally turn brown and fall off, but I've read that's normal. Is it possible the problem with the fruit and seeds is related to winter temperatures here? I'm in central Texas, zone 8b. Any advice will be appreciated!
This was an excellent year for Loquats (IE no hard freezes) so other than lack of maturity which can cause fruit drop. You may have had inadequate pollination mid-Winter when the trees blossomed.
It's probably not a pollination issue; both trees had thousands of bees swarming around them a few months back (this must be the only plant for miles around with flowers that time of year)! Would immature plants also explain the lack of seeds? I think we might have had one or two nights where the temprerature dipped briefly below 30F, but I don't know if it was cold enough to kill the seeds. Maybe there's nothing to do except wait another year and see what happens...
The lack of seeds does imply the flowers were not fertilized, even though bees were working them. (Pollination is pollen getting onto the flowers, fertilization is the pollen doing its job after it gets on the flowers; many use the term pollination when they are actually talking about fertilization).
Do you mean Loquats bear fruit without being pollinated/fertilized? I'm no expert at this, but I didn't think that was possible.
According to one Web site, "Well-established trees can tolerate a drop in temperature to 12º F (-11.11º C). In Japan, the killing temperature for the flower bud is 19.4º F (7º C); for the mature flower, 26.6º F (-3º C). At 25º F (-3.89º C), the seed is killed, causing the fruit to fall." The link is here: http://www.hort.purdue.edu/newcrop/morton/loquat.html We had a couple days in January and February that I remember the temperature dipping down to (or below) 25º F briefly. Maybe this is the reason, in addition to the tree being so young still. Also, this tree is about seven ft. tall, whereas the tree that isn't shedding its fruit is about 10-11 ft. tall. Oddly, the larger tree has much less fruit than the small one, but the fruit is mostly still green and larger. Anyway, I'm mostly just attempting to ascertain that there's nothing seriously wrong with these trees. I have a few questions regarding the look of some of the leaves that are dying, but I'll wait until I have a few photos to post. One more thing: I tried some of the fallen fruit from the small tree today, and it's really excellent!
Presumably if the seeds were frosted their remains would still be present inside the fruits. Trees bearing unfertilized flowers producing "blanks" or "duds" are far from unknown among other species.
Maybe that's it, then. I wasn't aware that could happen. Incidentally, there's some good news - A small percentage of the fruit on the smaller loquat is maturing normally (i.e., it's still on the tree), so I cut off a couple of the larger ones this evening. Whaddya know? Seeds! Also, a few loquats have suddenly ripened on the large tree, so I picked and ate a few of the large ones. Seeds again! These trees are a Chinese variety, and the fruit only grows to about the size of a ping-pong ball. The meat is sweet and juicy though, so that compensates somewhat for their small size. Thanks for everyone's ideas on this! Here's a shot of one cluster...
