Ulises:

I'm curious, what makes you think the soil in your pots has 60-80% moisture 10-11 days after you watered? Are you talking 60-80% of the maximum possible?

The reason I ask is that what happened to your potted trees (dead leaves, sun burn, stopped growing, etc) is not normal. It's not likely due to one tree being more vigorous than another, your weather, or any such thing. Instead it's likely you're not watering enough.

This post was edited by fruitnut on Fri, May 17, 13 at 11:29

"Instead it's likely you're not watering enough. "

Sounds right. i water my plants almost daily now and I'm in Michigan! They suck it down like they never seen it before.
I have watered everyday the last 4 days. I do use a lot of peat in my pots though, and in my raised beds. My plants and trees are growing very fast right now too!

quoting fruitnut:
"I'm curious, what makes you think the soil in your pots has 60-80% moisture 10-11 days after you watered? Are you talking 60-80% of the maximum possible?"

After not watering them for about 10 days, I decided to test how much moisture the soil still had, therefore, I squeezed some soil and to my surprise a small stream of water dripped from my hands. So I could surely say that the soil still had at least 60% moisture.

quoting hoosierquilt:
"Glad to hear your Peacotum is doing well. Both Fruitnut and I weren't too sure if this complex interspecific was going to make it or not, in either of our orchards. I will say, this year it is doing much better, but it looked pretty puny last year. No fruit, yet, so hoping year 3 is the charmer..."

My two peacotums already have flowers buds for next season, they are tiny though--but I'm glad that I will have some fruit next year.

"I am very impressed that someone in their early 20's has developed such an affinity for fruit trees and gardening."

Thanks.
I plan to patent some of my hybrids in the next ten years--I have to evaluate them first.

I have a Moorpark apricot (Pollen parent) x Santa Rosa plum (seed parent) hybrid, and some Myrobalan plum hybrids:

Seedling UBNC24--red leaf tree: Mariposa plum, seed parent, X Krauter Vesuvious plum, pollen parent.

Seedling UBNB24---olive green to rusty red foliage: Kruater Vesivious plum, Seed parent. Pollen Parent could be either a Satsuma plum or a Santa Rosa plum.
Seedling UBNA24.

Seedling UBNA24---Olive green to purple foliage: Kruater Vesivious plum, Seed parent. Pollen Parent, probably a Moorpark apricot.

"Hope your little tree will revive itself"

I giving a 40% chance. Sad.

Half of the rootstock looks great and half looks that is struggling.

I mean, Half of the rootstock looks great and the other half looks like is dying.

"Instead it's likely you're not watering enough. "

Or the tree was defective?

This tree leafed out around April 13th which is kind of late for a tree to leaf out in April (here in the High desert), all of my bare root trees, including three rootstocks, that I ordered this year leafed out by early March, even the ones that we planted in our community garden leafed out by early March.

To be honest, the reason that my pluerry leafed out was because I fertilized it with the B vitamins and the Myco Fungi, otherwise it wouldn't had never leafed out. when it was dormant, I watered it at least every four to six days. So, I don't think that irrigation was an issue.

My second theory: I believe that it leafed out so late was because both of the cherry and peach genes might have delayed from breaking dormancy . Cherries, like bing, here in the High Desert, usually start blooming around mid-March and leaf out by the end of March. Whereas peaches, here in the High Desert, start blooming around early-March and leaf out by the Second week of March.

weatherman:

If you squeezed water out of your potting soil as the plants were burning up then your potting mix may be too compact and wet. That could also cause the plants to stop growing and lose leaves.

Whatever the cause what's happening to your potted trees isn't normal or right. You'd do better asking questions rather than proposing so many theories based on little or no evidence.

And maybe just re-pot with better draining potting mix? Fruitnut, do you use the MiracleGro Garden Mix for all your potted stone fruits? Maybe that's all weatherman needs to do - just get the tree in some better draining potting mix.

Patty S.

Patty you could be right but it's difficult to repot now unless the tree is leafless. In that case he'd be lucky if it wasn't dead.

I've gotten rid of most of my potted trees. Had good luck with a very well drained local organic mix. But any largely organic mix can breakdown over time, become compact, and waterlogged. This will be followed soon by a dead or rapidly declining tree..

Thanks everyone for all of your input and tips.

I used a mixture of 40% Miracle gro moisture control potting mix, 40% Supersoil potting mix, and 20% desert sand in all my potted trees. All my potted trees* received the same care and all are located in the same location. All of my trees are doing great; my peacotums have leafed out again, they not even show any signs that they went into a shock.

I think that my pluerry is dead. Sad. I will be ordering at least two next year.

* Potted trees: I have one Flavor delight aprium, two Bella Gold peacotums, and one Spice Zee nectaplum.

weatherman, do a scratch test before you toss your tree. Hit it with some root stimulant as well and see if you can get it growing some roots again. You may be right, however, if the rest of your trees don't stay as wet. This could be an indication that your tree was dying, and simply not pulling up water. Also, just a recommendation - never add sand to potting mix. It simply compresses and fills in all the air spaces, suffocating your tree roots. You're better off with perlite.

Patty S.

fruit-

What would that mix consist of? I have so many potted plants, but just usually toss together what i have on hand (lots of wood chips/perlite/some compost...etc...)

frank:

Lightly composted wood chips used for rat bedding. It's free, light weight, drains well, and usually lasts several years. Buying anything gets expensive and my experience with purchased potting soil is poor. It usually breaks down, sets up, and becomes water logged rather quickly.

My Pluerry is officially dead. I pulled it out today, and guess what?

The rootstock was the problem, the roots were so brown from inside and out that I think that they died a week ago. They only put out about less than five inches of new roots. There were so signs of root rot or problems with soil--didn't smelled bad.

weatherman:

Chances are high that the real issue was some fault in the cultural system not the rootstock. Sure the rootstock looks bad on a dead tree but it's not likely the cause. If you want to be more successful next time look elsewhere than blaming the roots.

I hope the rest of your trees do well.

Maybe next year I need to be more cautious and more responsible taking care of my pluerries. Thanks fruitnut for all of your feedback.

My trees are doing well, all of them will survive--they look very healthy.

As far as potting soil, or any soil, it all breaks down. You have to replenish it. Add humus, manure, mulch. All my potted plants have mulch. I use pine hay. It works it's way into the soil, keeps it aerated, adds nutrition. I top with humus/manure mixes sold at all garden centers. or compost. Add more pine hay, etc,
All high end potting soil is going to have perlite, so how it becomes water logged is unknown to me? I have never had this problem. Add peat every year if that is a problem. Mix it with compost. I always use fresh potting soil when transplanting. The old stuff goes to fill holes in the yard, or line the bottom of a new raised bed, thrown in the garden. Often as the soil breaks down, it adds room in the pot to add more.
I always add organic matter to the garden too. Nut shells, coffee. I usually start new raised beds by composting. Yard waste, kitchen waste, coffee grounds, shredded leaves, sticks, anything organic. It adds to the soil for years. Then cover it with garden soil, peat moss, humus/manure. I often top coat it with high end potting soil. I have a new 8x12 bed and just threw in the evergreen trimmings from my evergreen hedge I just trimmed. great material for composting.lasts a long time breaking down slowly.
Every year I replenish the beds with well broken down compost. I'm now covering the organic material. The grass in there is old sod, a fantastic source for nitrogen.

Quoting Drew51:

"That sucks. Oh well get another one! I know I'm getting one next spring if I can find a vendor not sold out!"

IâÂÂll be getting tree next year. Raintree Nursery is probably going to carry them next year. This is what they told me,

âÂÂWe will most likely be carrying the Sweet Treat Pluerry in 2014. You may make your order sometime after August. This is when we will know for sure.âÂÂ

I mean three. oops.

Thanks weatherman for that info. i would rather get one from raintree as bay laurel has to send out not later than the first week in March, which really is way too early for here! I can still order now from raintree! I just put a tree in today from grandpa's. A nice bareroot! Since I only have room for one more tre, no doubt they will release another Pluerry, a crimson fleshed one this time...

I wish that DWN would release the Dapple Fire pluot---(no apricot involved, actually a peach x nectarine x plum hybrid), I love this pluot very juicy and sweet, better than flavor king and flavor finale pluots. And the Fall Fiesta plum, its going to be marketed as a Fiesta Fall Peapluerry because it has peach x plum x nectarine (from Dapple fire pluot) x cherry in its parentage---to home gardeners.

Weatherman, have you asked the folks at DWN if they have plans on releasing these cultivars to the public (and not just to the commercial side)? They usually do a nice job of answering questions on their Forum.

Patty S.

They probably won't release the peapluerry to the public, here is what Craig said:

"Sorry, Fall Fiesta interspecific is not available for home garden/retail. As a new variety intended for commercial production, it will be limited in its distribution and plantings will be monitored.

Additional Prunus complex interspecifics for home growing are in the development pipeline.

Craig"

http://www.davewilsonforums.com/index.php/showthread.php?t=11441

I''ll ask them today if they are going to release the Dapple fire pluot sometime in the near future.

I have the feeling that they might release something new next year, I think that is going to be another pluerry.

Here are my trees.

Black pot: Flavor Delight aprium, on marianna 2624.

Blue pot: Multigrafted tree--Goldkist apricot and burgundy plum, on lovell..

Left white pot: Bella Gold peacotum, on citation rootstock.

Green pot: Bella gold peacotum, on citation.

Right pot: Estella cherry, on GM61/1.

Grey pot: Spice zee nectaplum, on Lovell.

Big green pot: (where my pluerry used to be), open pollinated myrobalan plum seedling, pollen parent probably a moorpark apricot.

Brown wood pot: my own hybrid--a purple leafed seedling (Mariposa plum,seed parent) x myrobalan plum, pollen parent)

pink pot: colt rootstock (Raintree)
grey pot (behind blue pot) krymsk 1 rootstock ( Raintree), followed by Marianna 2624 rootstock (Raintree nursery)..

Background, black pots: My own proprietary seedlings--peach x nectarine, open pollinated elberta peach seedlings, and two apricot x plums hybrids.

From another angle.

"I have the feeling that they might release something new next year, I think that is going to be another pluerry"

That would be cool! Do we know another exists? I think we would know as they often have fruits available for tasting etc.

Itheweatherman, wow bonsai fruit trees! IMHO you need way bigger pots!

I have read that they have at least three varieties, one is a green pluerry, the other one is a cherrum (75% cherry-25% plum), one looks like a small plum, and the other one looks like a 50-50 cross.

"It's a name game with hybrid fruits"
http://articles.latimes.com/2010/jul/22/food/la-fo-fruit-20100722

"Itheweatherman, wow bonsai fruit trees! IMHO you need way bigger pots!"

I'll replant them into bigger (12 gallon?) pots next year.

Placed my sweet treat pluerries (2) orders today.

Great weatherman! I'll have to see what DWN has new this season. I need to replace a couple of trees that my gardener managed to kill. Both were extremely hard to get, so hoping I can find them again. Was pretty pissed about that.

Patty S.

They are releasing an atomic red nectarine and a dapple supreme pluot---way better than dapple dandy pluot but not as great as a flavor king pluot.

Just my opinion based on 5 fruit from a first year tree, but I think Sweet Treat is another gimmick like Bella Gold. I'll keep my ST another year but the taste is going to have to improve. The fruit this year tasted good but not as good as Flavor King and only 1/10 the size.

Well, a bit disappointing. I was also a little disappointed to see such little cherry in the makeup of the Sweet Treat. Fruitnut, did you give your Bellagold the shovel treatment, yet? No fruit for me again, this year, but the tree looks healthier. I'm going to give it one or two more season, then it will met it's destiny in the compost pile.

Patty S.

Patty, what trees are you needing to replace?

Patty:

My Bella Gold got the axe right after harvest. It was an easy decision. The tree wasn't healthy, didn't set well at all, had mediocre fruit, and Orangered ripening at the same time was way better. You don't have the Orangered option, very high chilling, but probably have something else better.

Sweet treat pluerry patent published, it's patented as "sweet pixie 2". Peach parentage comes from Tri-lite peach-pum.

Patents in class plt/180

How are your pluerries doing?

Any updates?

TCM

Mine is still young and growing fast.

Tony

This post was edited by tonytran on Thu, Jun 12, 14 at 9:19

I have a few fruits this year so stay tuned for my report in a month or so. It didn't set very many but its only in its 2nd year.

Scott

Here are my pluerries---I got them this year.

This one is growing in a pot.

So far, it has grown very healthy; It din't produced any fruit this year.

Scott, I still had no fruit, but my neighbor, who bought my extra trees, has a bunch. His Burgundy plum flowered better for him than mine did. He was kind enough to share a couple of fruits, and the taste is quite interesting. Sort of spicy, and you can definitely taste all the parentage in the fruit. The only complaint I would have is the skin is pretty tart - the one feature of stone fruit I really dislike. But, the flesh was very good, and very different tasting. Also, mine are very lush and healthy, so, if I can get decent cross pollination going, I should have lots of fruit. Hopefully, next year for my two trees.

Patty S.

Here is my second one. I planted this in the ground. The foliage is healthy, however, it hasn't grown that much.

My sweet treat pluerry is growing well. It bloomed well despite having well below recommended chill hour (less than 150). I did not expect fruit because the blooms did not overlap with burgundy plum.

Here is a vid of someone who has had success with sweet treat pluerry.

Here is a link that might be useful: Sweet treat pluerry

I have no Burgundy plum so clearly something else can pollinate it. Unfortunately I have a dozen different plums nearby so the particular plum(s) that helped are unknown.

Scott

My Sweet Treat last year were 20 grams and 24 brix with good but not outstanding flavor. For comparison some of my sweet cherries are routinely 12 grams and 28-30 brix. I'll take the cherries any day and they aren't my favorite fruit.

I've eaten a lot of 75-150 gram nectarines (Arctic Star, Honey Fire, and Snow Queen) this yr with 24-34 brix and vastly better flavor than Sweet Treat.

Flavor Supreme is 80-100 grams this yr and are running 28 brix. Flavor is way better than Sweet Treat and 4-5 times bigger.

This post was edited by fruitnut on Thu, Jun 12, 14 at 16:34

I planted mine, with a Burgundy plum in the Spring of 13. Sadly, the Winter of 14 did it in. The Burgundy plum came though just fine, and the rootstock/below the graft part of my Sweet Treat lived and started sprouting, but the actual Sweet Treat part of the tree died.

We got down to -3.

We also had cicadas last summer which did a bit of damage to my young tree so maybe that contributed too.

Luckily, by the time I determined it was truly dead I was able to order another one, so maybe next year I'll get something (???)

Here are my two trees. This is their second season. Very happy, very large, have to spring prune them. The first one is about 6-7' tall, the second one about 8' tall and starting to swallow up the the smaller Burgundy plum next to it on the left. Scott, DWN feels that the Sweet Treat will have many other possible pollinators, but unfortunately, all the rest of my possibilities are down in the walk & pick orchard:

{{gwi:126349}}

{{gwi:126350}}

Patty S.

This post was edited by hoosierquilt on Thu, Jun 12, 14 at 22:24

Patty, Those are very beautiful trees.

Do you find the foliage interesting? I do (on my pluerries) when young, the leaves resemble like those of a peach, as they get older they resemble a plum, and finally, as they reach maturity, they look exactly like a cherry. Even the bark is more peach-like than plum-like.

I got some fruit on mine after one year in the ground. The fruit wasn't anything remarkable. Just a sweet tasting small plum with a mild flavor and tart skin. I prefer the texture and flavor of all of my Pluots over sweet treat Pluerry. I'll probably keep it since it was productive after a winter where I only received 150 chill hours.

I don't have a burgundy plum but I do have some Pluots. I would imagine that most Japanese plums or Pluots will successfully pollinate it as long as they bloom at the same time.