I was wondering about the size of the orchard. Whether they are for business or residential?? I started a mini orchard in my house in Milpitas. In last 28 years it has reached 14 fruits & nuts trees & 2 grape vines. I intend adding 2 blueberry plants in 2010. All these years I did not use any chemicals for pesticides & fertilizers. Wify gets fed up because of the bumper crops we get and keeps distributing true organic products to friends & neighbors. In my opinion, unless, you want to experiment and graft for or start new varieties, how would data collection help you?? Going through the hassle (!!) of hard work and feeding similar chemicals as the commercial product you get in market, what difference in products you would produce, except for the convenience of vicinity. I was watching a DVD, from County of Santa Clara, "Do the ROT thing" about "The simple art of Home Composting". There was a mention of how WENTE create & apply compost on their grapes orchards . . . . . that is commercial. I would rather, create an organic orchard . . . . whether for residential use & commercial use.

I have these plants and started them from very small plants that I got male order. Right from the beginning the females were 2 or 3 times larger than the males. They have been in the ground about 3 years now. The females are still alot bigger. Mine are planted on the edge of a woodland, so they are battling large tree roots for water, etc. The good news is they are surviving even under such difficult conditions. The bad news is they are growing very slowly. Last winter I got a smattering of berries for the first time. If yours are in better soil, perhaps they will grow faster than mine. The male will not have berries. What you are seeing could well be flower buds. I'm not sure, without seeing them. At any rate, the flowers will be so small, you may miss them altogether. The female flowers are larger but definitely not showy. (My female is a possum haw. If yours is a different variety its flowers may be different from mine.) I caution you against "loving them to death". They are tough plants. Give them some time.

You should be OK with Jim Dandy, it is the standard pollinator except for known late flowering southern cultivars. Bright Horizon flowers right in the middle, although I've seen it paired with the southern pollinators also. You can watch the flowers for yourself next spring and see how well they coincide. Standard size, listed at 6' high and wide in ten years but will get larger than that.

I wish I had seen this old post before I made the mistake of purchasing an EZ-Flo. Mine doesn't work as advertised either and I'm well above 120 GPH. You can read about how EZ-Flo does not work and how they don't seem to care at the link. Here is a link that might be useful: Ez-Flo does not work as advertised. Advertised injection rates have no basis in reality.