Jesse:

From what I've seen Zaiger is rather secretive about his methods. I recently read thru his patents for all the pluot that I'm interested in. Unless I missed something all that is mentioned by name in the parentage are various plums. For instance one new pluot, Crimson Royale, is an open pollinated seedling of Flavor Grenade pluot. So he doesn't even know the parentage of that pluot.

To me the pluot are about 98% plum and a little apricot somewhere in their parentage.

I've never heard mention of any exotic techniques. But suspect that some must be necessary in things like plum x apricot x nectarine.

Since I have a greenhouse full of the 15 best-for-me pluot and about 6 best plum, I'm thinking I might plant seed from my pluot fruit just to see what the seedlings are like. Most should be pluot by pluot or pluot by plum. But I also have the best apricots and nectarines I can find. They bloom enough together that anything is possible.

Some of Zaiger's new pluot are just two pluot crossed or as I said open pollinated seedlings from pluot. My chances on any one seedling should be as good as his. But he's testing thousands, I'd be looking at 10s of seedlings. Still it would be interesting just to see the type and variety of fruit that shows up.

If anyone is seriously interested I would consider sending out seed of things like Flavor King.

My understanding is it involves, for one, getting pollen and then keeping it alive until the female plant is ready, because a big problem is they don't bloom at the same time. And of course a lot of other secret stuff. It is extremely difficult, otherwise there would be a lot more out there. However, modern technology is not absolutely essential, because crosses were done 100 years ago. Luther Burbank called his "plumcots" and described his process in his book Fruit Improvement, published in 1921.

Carla in Sac

UW plant breeder guy here in Wisconsin uses trees in large tubs, greenhouses and coolers to delay blooming so that trees that don't bloom together can...

Carla:

I'm sure parts of it can be difficult. But these nothing hard about crossing two pluot or planting seed of an open pollinated pluot. Anyone who buys a pluot can do the later.

A very interesting question, with an inspiring answer.

Pluot is a rare type of plum virtually unknown over here and rarely offered for sale.
I look forward to these fruits, in the last few years I am growing DD, not a realy special fruit I suppose.

I'm often drooling when I read what's excellent varieties as available to you all, my personal taste sensation of the last year was Flavor King I like the aromatic flavors. Wow
Four years ago I started growing a white nectarine from seed, past summer this tree had incredibly tasty fruit, Brix 18, taste factor wow!
It is just impossible for me to buy such quality trees in this part of northern Europe so my own nectarine gives me great satisfaction.

@fruitnut
If possible to realize it would seem to me incredibly nice to receive some seeds from your part of the world.
For lack of anything else I can only hope in some successful genetic seed.

I went on a tour of the Zaiger operation outside Modesto in 2004. Floyd and his three children were the hosts, with some help from the always-cheerful Dave Wilson Nursery people.

To address some of the points above:

1. The Zaigers do keep at least some subset of their breeding trees in tubs, under controlled conditions, so that they can coordinate bloom-time of clones that would other wise bloom non-synchronously.

2. "Embryo Rescue", which, as far as I can tell, is a form of tissue culture, is used in some cases. I recall mention that the technique had been used in their super-early peach breeding program, to coax seeds that had very little development-time to grow. (I vaguely recall talk about the encouragement of adventitious shoots.)

3. Floyd Zaiger did stress the importance of finding/developing genetic "bridges" in their interspecific breeding work. Sadly, I missed most of his talk, as I was at the tail end of the line at the fruit-tasting table, and I did not take notes, so I can't offer any more information. Of course, I'm sure that he offered only a fairly general overview in the section I missed, as giving away trade secrets to a tour group probably wouldn't have been a great idea! (I did get a chance to chat with Floyd for a few moments afterward, and he was as warm and courteous as anyone could imagine.)

As in any plant-breeding operation, there are vast fields where seedlings are grown-out for evaluation. We visited one block, a section where tightly-packed rows of plummy things stretched out (seemingly) endlessly into the Central Valley.

With respect to pluots/plumcots specifically: apricots and Asian plums cross readily, due (if I recall correctly) to their common chromosome count. So complicated genetic "bridges" were never necessary.

One of the Zaiger sons mentioned that they were working on crosses between Asian plums and sweet cherries -- now *that* probably took quite a bit more effort!

No doubt some aspects of fruit breeding are very difficult and I don't pretend to be any kind of expert. But the fact that some of Zaiger's most recently patented pluot are open pollinated seedlings of Flavor Grenade tells me that any of us could find a superior seedling. Outdoors Flavor Grenade could be pollinated by anything a bee could carry in from considerable distance. Zaiger wouldn't resort to testing open pollinated seedlings if they were that sure of what they should be crossing or if it took complicated techniques to be successful.

In my greenhouse, where pluot are now in full bloom, I can limit parents to fruits I've chosen to best fit my taste and growing conditions. Based on past experience and correlations with others findings I think I've got some of the worlds best fruit varieties. So an open pollinated seed of say Flavor King from my greenhouse is at worst self pollinated but will often be a cross of two outstanding fruits. I'd take my chances with my open pollinated crosses vs anything outdoors anywhere.

I may plant out some seeds just to see what the progeny look like even if only 1 in 100 or 1000 is as good as the parents. I think these seedlings planted in barrels should fruit by the third year, maybe sooner.

Anyone interested in obtaining seeds contact me late next summer.

The UC Davis folks couldn't find any apricot genetic markers in the pluots so they have hardly any apricot in them.

The problem with fruit breeding is you need to grow about 1000 minimum to make it worthwhile that you will get a superior variety, unless you are doing an unusual kind of cross that is not being done at all. I have done a few breeding experiments but more just for fun since I have neither time nor space for a thousand crosses. I believe both Burbank and the Zeigers are in the hundreds of thousands of crosses so even if you do a thousand they have you beat a hundred to one.

Scott

Scott:

I'm sure you are right on all counts. I'd be doing it just to see what showed up. Most of my fruits are too sweet anyhow. This could probably cure that problem.

So were you surprised with the progeny of your experiments or just disappointed?

Fruitnut, I don't mean to discourage too much, its a lot of fun and thats why I do it. Just don't expect the next great pluot to show up. I haven't had much luck getting things to fruiting stage, only a couple mediocre peaches and lots of male kiwis so far.

Scott

ashok, thanks for your remarks on the Zaiger fruit tour. Are they still doing them.

I went to CRFG scion exchanges last month and would like to visit again when pluots are ripening.

I am growing several Flavor King seedlings right now from my tree. FK goes off patent in June. My FK tree is planted along a tree line which delays bloom until the peaches bloom. While the pluots and plums never get frost this way the bees prefer peach blooms a lot better. But the bees do try FK flowers which makes naturally occurring peach cross pollination and I will clip a fresh blooming Redhaven and brush away.

What I do is allow the potted FK seedlings to grow one year and harvest dormant scion wood and use the root stock in the spring to graft a known cultivar.

I will graft the FK x open pollinated(peach?)scion back into the FK tree. My real FK tree bloomed the second year.

Many new cultivars are selections from 5000 pollinated seedlings. It could be the 39th seedling or the 3900th seedling. Usually a couple dozen of the 5000 are tested for commercial growing and one is chosen.

Personally I cross fruits for fun and having root stock to graft on to. If the fruit taste does turn out complex like FK and doesn't crack, and peaches rarely do, I may call it 'Flavorhaven'.

I just finished 'The Perfect Fruit' by Chip Brantley
Chip writes about Pluots and the California plum industry. Fun to read.

AceofSpades,

Ah, so you're the intrepid soul from the East Coast who visited the exchanges -- I was one of the helpers at the El Sobrante exchange, and the exchange coordinator mentioned afterward that we had one attendee from across the continent. I send greetings and salutations: you are truly hardcore!

If you do come out later in the year, the best way to taste pluots would probably be at one of the "tasting walks" at Andy Mariani's orchard in Morgan Hill, although I suspect that you may already know this. You can also visit the "Heritage Orchard" at Prusch Park in San Jose; visitors are welcome to sample the fruit, although not to strip the trees or take bags of fruit home. (You can also take scions for grafting/budding, so long as you are respectful of the trees.) There are no pluots at Prusch, as far as I know, but rather older cultivars of Asian and European plums, apricots, etc.

The large Zaiger tours are not held frequently, unfortunately. There was one in 1996, which I was not able to attend, and one in 2004, to which I did make it. Perhaps we are due for another! If you are interested (in which case, mail me off-forum) I can send you contact information for the fellow who organized the 2004 tour. I don't think he's going to take the lead in organizing again, but he might have a sense of whether Zaiger/Dave Wilson would be open to doing another.

By the way, I should add that I'm talking about CRFG-sponsored tours open to a broad range of the public. They might hold tours for grade-school kids or older agriculture students, and I'm sure that professional growers or others in the industry would have regular opportunities to visit the grounds/facilities.

Fruitnut, I'd be game to give it a try. Since plums are marginal here, if we got a good tasting one that thrives in my weather, it would be winning the lottery.

Basic fruit tree breeding is planting seeds and seeing what you get. The trick is to have enough space to grow out lots and lots of seedlings.

A new variety must be better than the existing varieties before it has any value. That's rare. Thus the volume of seedlings grown. Most don't pan out.

In breeding show livestock and in breeding veggies, it is sometimes done to breed separate lines that concentrate 1-2 features, then crossbreed two of those lines and hope for a hybrid that contains all the concentrated features of both parents.

For example, breed a line of plums that have concentrated genes for sweetness and aroma. Breed a line of plums that never crack and have excellent color. Then you cross the two and hope to get a hybrid that has sweetness, aroma, color, and crack resistance.

Ashok, thanks so much for the greetings and tasting tour information. I had a wonderful time everywhere in central California and will be back soon as I can. I started scion wood hopping last March to go with vacation to Portland and Seattle. The HOS scion exchange in Portland had 200 apple varieties and many pear. I'd say HOS had a larger single day attendance. There were nurseries selling trees, plants,orchard bees and supplies inside. Very cool event and people. I picked up Flavor Supreme pluot scionwood as well as many apples pears plums and cherries. I may get to taste those on my back yard trees this year.

From Long Island, NY I arrived in San Francisco Friday Jan. 14th for the Santa Clara exchange Saturday in Prusch Park. CRFG members got in the door 1/2 hour early, I was one. Volunteers cut scion wood from the 'Heritage Orchard' in PP the weekend before, which constitutes the bulk of the scionwood going through the exchanges. Andy Mariani(orchards)offered 8 or so new released Zaiger pluots, nectaplums and peacotums for $12 each. One cannot experience all the scionwood varieties offered in one day, so the next day(Sunday) all the scion wood is sent to Monterey CRFG scion exchange a bit further south in Santa cruz. Monterey chapter CRFG scion exchange was held in beautiful Cabrillo University overlooking the ocean. Folks brought local grown samples of their blood oranges, hybrid pumelos, apples, kiwi, dishes of avocado dip even marinated olives which I love. I asked about Cherimoya scion wood and evidently found the mother load of Cherimoya scion wood when I followed the site admin of cloud forest cafe to his home subtropical orchard. We cut scions and tasted apples still hanging while oranges ripened nearby. From San Francisco the drive down and up on the coastal Cabrillo Hwy is exciting. On Monday I sent my scion wood home and drove to Santa Rosa, home of Luther Burbank, now a museum. I drove west through through Sebastopol to Reyes point 70k acre park north of San Francisco, all 1850's pioneer settled cow pastures that end at the cliffs. The beaches below have elephant seal with their new born pups. The view of the coastline and ocean is natural unbroken with huge views on sunny days. I went back again the next day and took a closer look at the beached seals with some incredible photographs.

The following weekend, I arrived early for the Saturday Jan. 22 Golden Gate CRFG chapter scion exchange in El Sobrante just north east of San Francsco. I helped set up scion wood tables and then assemble the local chapter questionnaires. Lots of folks attended, in just a few hours it was mobbed. For folks that bought root stock I did some whip and tongue grafting. Grafting with John V., Sally, we did about 50 lbs of root stocks and we were glad when they all sold out. The next day driving north to Sacremento CRFG scion exchange there was fog but I could see some Apricot trees already blooming. I got in to Sac. early, and now experienced, arranged tables and set up scion wood by types. The next day airport crew checked my travel bag with 49.5 lbs of back yard grown citrus. I carried my scions and clothing bag. Back in NY I put my bags in my car covered in ice and snow. Fifteen minutes later I was back in my home.

Here is a link that might be useful: Golden Gate scion exchange