questor3:

Nice report and beautiful pictures. I wish more of this type material were posted.

Flavor Grenade is supposed to be firm and crunchy when ripe. So if it's background color is not green, then ripening might reduce eating quality, I'm not sure. Your fruit is small probably from under thinning. This thing sets fruit like there's no tomorrow. It's main attribute is extreme crunchy texture. The flavor isn't it's strong suit.

Your Dapple Dandy sounds under ripe. But for me it's only OK even at it's best. I'll be cutting back more on these trees this winter.

The heart shaped fruit may be Flavor Heart pluot. It was a dud for me as well. Never got sweet. This variety is listed on DWN with picture and description.

The other two I've never heard of or seen on Dave Wilson's website. I'll list that below.

Flavor King is the best tasting of the pluot. The others I like are Geo Pride, Flavor Finale, and Flavor Treat.

Next time try the fruit as you get it in the store. Then ripen only those that seem green. Some could actually be ripe as purchased. Again thanks for posting.

Here is a link that might be useful: DWN pluots

Thanks fruitnut. Your reports have been most informative for me. In fact were an inspiration for me to do this one.

All of my individual pluots were akin to a golf-ball when I purchased them. My experience in getting hopefully edible store bought fruit is to ripen it on, in a brown bag and to the point of softening up. This usually gets them as good as you are going to get in this scenario. Of course, tree ripened is a whole other ball game.

The FG was definitely hard and crunchy like you suggest. But still a ways off from being ready in my opinion. So like I said already, I'll get another one from the store once they look to be further ripening. I was back in the store again today, and they all look like they are progressing more-so towards that end. Possibly I'll be able to report back in if that happens.

I'm hoping to get the chance at some of the others on your 'favorable' list of pluots someday. Always have my eyes on the lookout, that is for sure.

It's not as easy as it might seem to pick this type fruit when it is optimally ripe. I've found that out trying to sell at the farmers market. Usually I start picking something several weeks early and then decide I need to back off. In fact that happened with some of my Flavor Grenades this year. But when one tree ripens 6 weeks before another that can happen.

I'd guess most store bought stone fruit is picked 10-14 days too early just as a standard practice.

Just checking back in to report on another Flavor Grenade pluot that I just finished up. This one was quite a bit better matured than the last one that I tried as noted previously. I have been watching them in the store and finally found one that seemed ripe to the feel.

It tasted way better than the first one. Much better on the sweetness factor, and a nice fruity plum-like flavor. It also had the firmer flesh like Fruitnut suggested, along with a mellow touch of tangy-ness. What makes me wonder is what it is that pluots in general have 'UP' on plums overall? What are their advantages to growing them over plums in areas where both are worthy options?

Today I was at the store and grabbed a pluot shaped like your lower right one (there was no name on it). It was bland and not even that sweet.

I don't think pluots have much up on plums. On average they are more firm and more sweet than plums. The quality on average in the grocery is also a bit higher, but based on the recent pluots I have tried from stores it has declined to not much better at all. Pluots in stores right after they came out ten years ago were pretty dern good.

Scott

Nice to see some fruits sold with variety names. Wish they would do that with more often with other stone fruits. I think the Emerald Beaut plum (for example) is as good as or better than most Pluots. Iit was introduced by Zaiger, too. I would also like to know what variety of peach, nectarine, apricot or cherry I am eating.

Concerning decline in fruit quality in stores since Pluots were first introduced: I think when Pluots first came out they were left on the tree until they were a little riper. Dapple Dandy was probably the most recognizable early Pluot. This year, my brother-in-law picked up some commercial Dapple Dandies three or four weeks before I started picking mine. And the quality of Dapple Dandy varies A LOT from year to year, It seems to be quite picky about the conditions in which it is grown. Mine were much better than usual this year. Sometimes they're barely worth eating for one reason or another.

There were also some knock-off Dapple Dandy look-alikes introduced, some of which even the supplier called inferior. When it is happy, Dapple Dandy is quite prolific and can produce big fruits even when there is quite a lot of fruit on the tree. The look-alike varieties seem to have been introduced to stretch out the season. Some of the latest look-alikes may be worthy fruits in their own right, but I haven't tasted any of them, and they're not available to home growers.

I read an article in "Good Fruit" suggesting a general commercial disillusion with producing pluots because of poor productivity- even in CA. I Guess you better enjoy them while they're still on the market.

Flavor wise, I feel they've contributed substantially to the roster of wonderful plum-type fruit. Never tasted any that actually seemed like a combined plum-cot. The pluots just taste like J.plums to me.

Here I never see them sold as named varieties, unfortunately.

Should have mentioned that I bought some pluots that looked like S. Punch in early summer before I had stone fruit in my orchard ready. Cost me only 99 cents a pound and tasted very good- firm and quite sweet. It was an Asian grocery that specializes in discount produce.

I think the big advantage of some of these varieties is they get high brix while still very firm so they are easier to distribute while of high quality. Probably not as valuable a trait for the home grower if they are also not very productive.

I stated my greenhouse project with about equal numbers of pluot and plum. Now I produce pluot 20 to 1 over plums. All my favorites on several trees potted and in-ground for eight years. Productivity isn't a problem with the newer pluot, at least not for me. I thin, thin, and thin again.

With all that said only two pluot offer something clearly better than the best plum, Flavor Grenade and Flavor King. Flavor King is the best pluot for me by a wide margin. No plum comes close. I also really like Geo Pride and Flavor Treat.

The first generation pluot like Dapple Dandy, Flavor Supreme, and Flavor Queen have serious issues with quality, low set, and cracking respectively and should be dropped from retail tree sales IMO. They are sold based on name recognition and because DWN and retail nurseries think that's what will sell. So they are sold to many home growers who could mostly do better with a newer variety.

You'd know, Fruitnut. I assume, though, that your evaluations are based on greenhouse growing which is a unique environment as you well know but seldom mention. Here in the Northeast I've yet to see any signs of pluot production of any kind and fruit set has been a huge problem for us. Considering how hard DW is pushing these through ACN (I'm assuming) my hunch is ACN has tested all the established varieties, but I'll have to check on that.

Thanks Questor!
According to your pictures it looks like I have tasted the Summer Punch, [my first pluot] was very pleased with it.
Are there any for zone 3? Do you need a longer growing season then plums?

It's not just greenhouse conditions. Flavor Supreme has low productivity outdoors and must be picked at just the right moment, when it can be wonderful. Grafting in an early pollenizer like Inca may help productivity, as the blossoms don't seem to be attractive to bees. I think most of my pollination is done by houseflies. This year, it was very hot when the fruit ripened, and it tasted cooked straight from the tree.

Flavor Queen is picky. Produced a lot of very sweet fruit this year, but often has no fruit. I had a little cracking, Fruitnut's had serious cracking. It's sweet and honey-like in flavor, rather than "fruity".

Dapple Dandy is usually productive for me (not last year, though), but quality of the fruit is very unpredictable.

Flavor King grows great fruit on a weak tree, susceptible to brown rot. Consider planting on a more vigorous rootstock than you would use for similar trees. I lost a tree last year (my fault) and have a new one started.

I got my first Geo Pride fruits this year. Seems like it will be productive. I had to thin a lot. It's not as large as the first generation Pluots, but it's very sweet and flavorful. I have a new Flavor Grenade and a Splash, assuming that they were labeled correctly.

Carolyn, how do they compare to a good Elephant Heart?

harvestman:

My stuff is in a greenhouse but I don't think that's a serious flaw. At least I get a crop every year and mostly not just from one tree or one growing method. Most anyone would be amazed at how much variability there is within and between trees or between potted and in-ground. So I've seen the good, bad, and ugly on most of this stuff with regards to eating quality.

What I haven't seen is how these fruits react to rain and disease pressure. I'll leave that to you.

My results match up very well with what Carolyn just posted above. And unlike DWN, here people get the flaws not just the strong points. Fruit quality will vary because of soil, water, heat, sunshine, etc. So mine is just one point on the map, but a very experienced point compared to almost anyone else willing to share here on a regular basis.

Elephant Heart is my father-in-law's favorite, but I don't know that I've ever had a really prime one. They're not grown commercially here anymore, and his tree gets picked too soon because of birds. Most of the Pluots would be firmer, I think, especially the newer ones. And I never think "crisp" in connection with Elephant Heart. The skin would be less astringent with the Pluots, except maybe for Dapple Dandy in bad years.

I like the old-fashioned, soft and juicy plums, too, Santa Rosa has a special flavor and its juiciness in combination with its flavor complexity can be a memorable experience. Flavor King has a similar level of flavor saturation and perhaps even more complexity, without the eye-opening, astringent/ tart qualities of the skin and the flesh near the seed in a Santa Rosa. It's bigger than Santa Rosa, but maybe not bigger than Elephant Heart.

Several of the Pluots have the Mariposa Plum ("Improved Satsuma") in their heritage, as does the Golden Nectar plum. Not that I can tell in the case of Golden Nectar. I have tried twice to grow a Mariposa tree, but I think the rootstock was wrong for the location. I'm also interested in the Laroda plum, voted the best Japanese plum for cooking several years ago by Sunset Magazine. Flavor King is probably the best Pluot for cooking.

My better-than-usual Flavor Queens this year reminded me of eating an Asian pear more than anything. Probably sounds sort of strange. Just picked the last ones, after several weeks of harvest.

The flavor of my better-than-usual Dapple Dandies this year reminded me a little of those little Sweet-Tart candies. Texture was firm but somewhat juicy. The last ones picked were inferior to those picked a little earlier. The best ones were picked several weeks after they looked ripe, when they started to soften.

For me Flavor Queen is the poster child for all sugar and no flavor. Maybe I just don't like the flavor. A friend likes them so maybe it's just me.

I've struggled along with Dapple Dandy for 8 years thinking it was something else. About 4 years ago I bought a new tree thinking maybe I'd given it short shift from my CA experience. Well it suddenly hit me that the new Dapple Dandy was identical to my older trees. Now they're all getting tossed or at least cut way back. It's never been better than good. I don't particularly like the flavor or texture and sin of all sins, it's not very sweet.

Flavor Treat is a superior very late pluot to anything else I've got. DWN likes Flavor Finale better, they say the flavor is better, ya maybe. But Flavor Finale can and often does get soft tips or soft on one whole side before it's fully ripe. Along with that the interior can turn to mush.

Flavor Treat is bigger, huge in fact, firm and meaty, very sweet, and has a good flavor. Besides that it's my latest tree fruit lasting usually into Nov. I watch these big beauties all summer long.

These are the biggest Flavor Treat on an overly vigorous, cut back tree. The smaller ones on other trees will be sweeter. I've got this beauty on 5 in-ground trees and 4 potted trees. The biggest fruit is 3 inches.

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Well, very interesting info from all, and thanks questor, nice photos and taste testing results. As it happens, I was at our local Vista Farmer's Market this morning, and picked up some Flavor Grenade pluots. They are out of this world. I am SO glad I planted my Flavor King and my Flavor Finale pluots! If they are as good as the Flavor Grenade is here in my neck of the woods, I'm in 7th heaven. This pluot is exactly what I want in a stone fruit - none of the grimacing with tart skins, I just hate that. Some folks like it, but it's what turns me off about some stone fruits. This pluot was firm, but gave to the touch - I purposefully did not select hard ones. They are a little crunchy, but just barely. And the flavor is delectable. I was so excited! Hope my apriums and necta-plums will be as good, such a great taste!!

Patty S.

Agree that Flavor Queen is mostly sugar, Fruitnut. At this very hot time of year, that's OK with me (makes me wonder about the flavor of Emerald Drop, though). I don't blame you for giving up on Dapple Dandy for something more consistent that you like better. These varieties looked very big and impressive for me this year, and I'm sure that could be an attraction to a lot of home growers. I don't think Flavor Queen is a viable commercial fruit because the stems pull out when really ripe, even if they don't crack like yours. Both of these varieties are vigorous for me. I'm cutting back both trees to give a little more growing room to their neighbors.

Flavor Supreme is also a vigorous tree, but I'm thinking about grafting in other varieties rather than whacking the tree back severely. Nothing I grow in the early season has as much flavor as a really good one, though it's always a gamble whether I will get good fruit. Your recommendation of Flavorella Plumcot is attractive, as I could have as good a chance of harvesting fruit from it as from Flavor Supreme. I need to think of a place I could plant it with an appropriate pollenizer. Arctic Star nectarine would be a better choice for most people, I think.

Flavor Treat sounds fabulous,

Patty:

If I were choosing Flavor Grenade at market I'd go with the hard ones with completely yellow background color. They are supposed to be crisp. Grown with quite a bit of water mine are 18-20 brix and crisp. Grown at moderate water deficit they are 22-28 brix and very crunchy. At excess water deficit they can be 32-35+ brix, almost hard even when they feel and are dehydrated, and have off flavors.

You'll love Flavor King. It's very good at 18-20 brix. No tartness and massive flavor, truly Flavor King.

Carolyn:

Yes, Arctic Star nectarine is a better choice than both Flavor Supreme or Flavorella for nearly anyone. However properly grown, 22+ brix, Flavorella is unique and superb but it blooms very early, is hard to pollinate, and drops badly.

Flavor Supreme sets heavy crops if you can fool the bees into working it. Grafting in multiple pollinators is your best bet. Honeybees seem better than bumblebees. It probably helps that our honeybees are starving in Febr when this thing blooms. So my best set has been potted trees pollinated outside with many varieties crowded in a small area. I crowd everything else around FS. Doing that this year I had to thin a lot.

Well, these are probably best described as "firm", but I can't say they're "hard". But, they are yellow! And oh my gosh, they are out-of-this-world good. I mean really yummy. I'm really super excited for my Flavor King. Sure hope I get a few fruit next year. Have you or anyone else experienced Flavor Finale? Tom Spellman assured me this was also an excellent pluot, and late - Sept/Oct, which is really nice. I'm really excited, though, for my Flavor King. Sounds like it will be exactly what I want in a stone fruit, awesome!! And, I also have an Arctic Star nectarine, too. Crossing my fingers I can get them to continue to do well here.

Patty S.

Patty:

My impressions of Flavor Finale are included in the post above that includes a picture of Flavor Treat. I think it has the potential to be a good fruit but it has been variable for me. The Finale are softening up right now so I'm forced to pick them before I really want to. I've picked more Finale than Dapple Dandy. I had a Flavor Treat last night that fell off with a rotten spot. 80% was good and tested 25 brix. Still a little green/tart but very tasty.

Arctic Star and Flavor King are both top 10 fruits. Yours will likely be good right out of the starting blocks. If not alter your cultural techniques because they have that potential.

Oops, I see you did, indeed, give Flavor Finale a 2 thumb's up, very good. One thing for me that's helpful, is our natural lack of rain during the summer months (as in none), so all my stone and poms get less and less water as summer progresses, even though they're on drip. The combination of no rain and increasing temps sort of automatically puts them in more water deficit. Not so much the trees suffer, but hopefully enough to produce nice, sweet fruit. We'll see hopefully next year if I get some fruit set. I think any of these stone fruits that are either extremely early or extremely late become more of an iffy situation. I knew that going in with my early and late varieties, and any weather fluctuations beyond perfect growing conditions will affect the quality of these fruits I would think. So, we'll see next season, I hope!

Patty S.

Holy Cow! What a great bunch of reply's and descriptions from everybody. Thanks so very much for further enlightening me. I really appreciate hearing from the true trial experts on this. I hope to see 'Flavor King' listed in one of my local zone 4 grocery stores someday. Sounds like that one is the one to try above all others if a person can be so lucky. But I will continue to seek out others opportunities as well of course.

This brings me to my latest chance to trial a few store purchased pluots. This time both coming from Walmart. They had what appeared to be three varieties available. But I had to pass on the Dapple Dandies this time around. The varieties were not named as usual for here, but the DD's are fairly easily recognized I believe. They were all just listed as pluots in general. One thing I noticed is that two varieties had the same number PLC code number sticker on them, but were nowhere near alike in appearance. The DD's were separately labeled. These are the two that I purchased to try immediately after purchasing them, and are shown in the pics below.

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There was nothing special to report positively for either of these. Negatively, I must say that the golden colored variety had me thinking I was chewing on a piece of the paper towel in the background. P-tooey on that one! The left side darker colored one at least had a bit of sweetness going for it. Nothing remarkable here either way.

What grabbed my attention most was the fact that two so widely varying fruits were basically considered the same thing by those in charge of labeling these two varieties. One more strike against grocery stores in general from my viewpoint.

One other notable, is the cartoon dinosaurs depicted on the labels. This may harken back somewhat to when they were calling the Dapple Dandies dinosaur eggs in the stores. I remember seeing them in little Easter-Egg like 4-pack nests with the artificial grass and the whole bit labeled as dinosaur eggs to mimic a lizard nest I recon. Makes me laugh now as it did then. I would have to say was a targeted marketing ploy towards young children that apparently never worked out for them. Wonder what they will try next!?!?

Have recently purchased some more of the Summer Punch and Flavor Grenade, and have been enjoying them lately. So will stick to them for now.

* Posted by scottfsmith 6B-7A-MD (My Page) on
Fri, Sep 9, 11 at 21:29
"Today I was at the store and grabbed a pluot shaped like your lower right one (there was no name on it). It was bland and not even that sweet."

Scott - whatever this one really is, maybe it should be renamed 'bland-ot' - LOL!

* Posted by harvestman 6 (My Page) on
Sat, Sep 10, 11 at 8:20
"Flavor wise, I feel they've contributed substantially to the roster of wonderful plum-type fruit. Never tasted any that actually seemed like a combined plum-cot. The pluots just taste like J.plums to me."

Harvestman - For a more Apricot flavored version, is that where the Apriums come into play? The Jap Plum flavor seems to be what I am most favorably experiencing with these so far too. Thanks for your inputs.

Fruitnut, concerning your comment to Harvestman:

The DWN website used to include quite a bit of information on the flaws of various varieties, particularly on the commercial side. I think growers appreciated this, as they could make sound decisions based on the information on the website. It's almost like marketing types now have more influence than plant people over what goes into the website.

They're not as shameless as some of the major seed houses, though. You get some really florid variety descriptions there now. I've gone on to smaller suppliers of seeds for the most part, largely because I don't trust the hype in the "big" catalogs anymore. Along with the hype has come a reduction in the number of regionally-targeted varieties.

At the Rare Fruit Growers- NAFEX meeting in Santa Cruz a few years back a couple of sales reps from Dave Wilson gave a demo that was as hoaky as a late night commercial for that slicem and dicem whatsamajigger you can't live without. It was very poorly tuned to the audience, I thought, and the speakers knew far less about fruit trees than most of their audience. Not a sophisticated presentation at all.

That experience is one reason why I'm probably a bit over skeptical about concepts pushed by DW such as multiple tree plantings in single holes.

I guess it all comes down to how a company wants to represent itself, and Dave Wilson apparently has a very good product in the Zaiger line but they may not trust the intelligence or sophistication of their market.

To the question about characteristics of Pluots, Plumcots and Apriums: Pluots have mostly plum characteristics. Apriums have mostly Apricot characteristics. Plumcots tend to have characteristics of both. Fruitnut mentions Flavorella above - very flavorful but hard to pollenize and grow. There is an old Zaiger plumcot called "Plum Parfait" that looks like an apricot with some red marbling. It is no longer sold by DWN, but I think it's still available. I haven't tasted it. Supposed to be self-fruitful.

There is a UDSA variety bred for the upper Southeast, Spring Satin, which others can fill you in on. It was over-hyped by a disreputable nursery in Florida and other nurseries (shamefully) adopted their description. It looks like a plum with a little fuzz.

I have an old Luther Burbank plumcot variety, sold by wholesaler L.E. Cook. Variety name is not identified. It's a small, easy-care tree with beautiful bark and foliage and blossoms larger and showier than on most culinary plums. You will never find this plumcot in a grocery store. Fruits are apricot-sized or smaller, pastel yellow with a red blush when ripe. It softens while still tart. When perfectly ripe, it is very soft with a pleasant, mildly sweet flavor which reminds me of rose water. It is nothing like the bolder-flavored Pluots. It has a very short harvest window, and over-ripe fruits quickly disintegrate into mush.

It often bears some fruit on the main branches as well as on newer growth. It does not bear young, but seems to be self-pollenizing and is about as reliable and prolific as the typical Japanese plum. The best use I can think of for the excess fruit that comes on all at once is mixing it with stronger-flavored fruits in fruit leather.

Spring Satin is a very nice plumcot, its a little more on the apricot side in flavor and texture (as well as having fuzz). The flavor is also much better than the older Burbank plumcots. I think I had that Burbank one you have, and it was bland, mealy, and useless and didn't last long in my orchard. I have another Burbank one which is dark-skinned and yellow-fleshed; I don't know the name of it but it is at least OK.

The UC Davis DNA analyses of the pluots found no apricot markers at all and I myself wonder if there is any apricot in them; I sure don't see any.

Scott

I think the Burbank plumcot is usually kind of mealy too, Scott. Under-ripe, it's tart and bland and over-ripe, it's just bland. But I have some friends who really love it at its peak. One is a pretty sophisticated guy who has lived in several countries. Maybe its subtle qualities appeal. I like a few of them in season, but I don't really need a whole tree full of them. There are much better choices for most people.

Glad to hear that Spring Satin is a nice fruit.

OK Today I tasted my first Flavor Grenade Pluot and can see why Fruitnut likes them so much. It was crisp and sweet. It was in the generic Pluot section of my local Whole Foods.

I was still very satisfied with the Dapple Dandy (Dinosaur Egg) I was able to eat before the birds feasted on my tree this year. It has a sweetness with a sharp sour bite on the skin that I happen to like.

What I like even more than the Plouts is the Cotton Candy Apruim. It is sweet as sweet can be. Too bad the birds also ransacked that tree as well. Next year I will be prepared to take on the angry birds.

Thanks for your article. I'm a "Flavor Supreme"enthusiast. I have a tree that puts out the most delicious pluots imaginable, in my opinion. I've tried many other varieties and so far, Flavor Supreme is the best. They would be hard to find in the markets, though. I think I saw some at The Berkeley Bowl Marketplace in Berkeley, CA. Flavor Supreme pluots are not blah at all. They are sweet, tartish and super flavorful. They sort of say "Wow!" in your mouth, if you know what I mean. I wish I knew how to attach a photo to this blog.

I'm with Scott here.. I haven't tasted a good grocery store Pluot yet... All I have had tasted like wet, slightly sweet cardboard mush. For the most part - after the first few, I really couldn't bring myself to pay $4.00/lb for the things... especially when I can get terrible, mushy, sawdust tasting fruit for a whole lot less... ;)

Perhaps in September of last year - there was some reasonably good stuff coming off the trees that made it to the market...

I am glad to hear that good quality fruit can be gotten in some places.

Thanks for the market report - It makes me think about trying them out again in Late Summer/Fall 2012...

Thanks

curritiba, there are directions on Garden Web on how to embed a photo, but basically here are the instructions: upload to a photo sharing site, like Photobucket. Then, copy the HTML code (NOT the URL of the photo, but the HTML code, which pops up for you if you float your mouse over the uploaded photo on Photobucket). Then, simply paste in the HTML code into the body of your message. When you click "Preview", the photo will then appear right in your message.

Also, you're better off starting a new thread, and then having the ability to check off the notification checkbox to be notified of responses, rather than tacking onto a very old thread :-)

Patty S.

I've sampled Pluots a number of times, and almost always they are flat, insipid and lacking in sweetness. I do once recall having one that did have a sort of apricot aftertaste but most of them were markedly inferior to even regular plums. If there is one that actually has some Apricot flavor, I've yet to identify it.

I'm sorry you guys can't taste good pluot. They are nothing like store bought fruit. They really aren't that hard to grow but are difficult outdoors unless you have a good climate. Also after you've grown and tasted enough you find they aren't all created equal even off one tree in one year. And growing conditions have a huge impact on fruit quality. One variety I grow, Flavor Treat, has had brix ranging from 12 to 32. Unfortunately the store bought stuff is often in that 12-14 range, hardy worth eating. I like them best at 24-32 brix. Growing those takes the right climate and proper culture. It's culture as much as cultivar.