Was the fruit you refer to very sweet, smaller than normal, and highly flavored? I've been told that the best fruit in CA is grown dryland in areas with winter rainfall, deep soil, and old drought tolerant trees. That says the exact same thing to me that you stated above. @Fruitnut, Yup, exactly, especially with the sultana style grapes. Although with some fruit it's more to it than just small and sweet like with the grapes, for example pomegranates can get pretty complex flavors on the spectrum of sweet to tart when they're in the middle there of both and when the pits in the seeds become negligible instead of hard as wood chips- or when a nigra mulberry is just huge and so juicy but still extremely flavorful or maybe you've seen here but I haven't when a fig is so ripe the red pink nectar is oozing out from the bottom hole or when a pomegranate bursts open on the tree from the sun fully ripening it not bursting open from a disease or because of excess rainfall. But yeah, definitely a trend of smaller and sweeter exists I'd say- another common example of that would be the strawberries- they're tiny/mushy not aesthetically pleasing at all compared to grocery store strawberries here looking epic and beautiful... but the taste is something else with the small ones. This phenomenon of not watering the wild fruit (which are usually in not so easy places to go pick the fruit) has a name for it in Iran- "bash" lots of different fruit can be "bash" meaning grown wild in drought like conditions. I suspect the trees are pretty old too. I think pomegranate exists like this too- I've had fig and grapes bash before. All that being said, I've had some of my best fruit experiences here too. I was actually born in Virginia am pretty proud of our watermelon and peaches here :). The mid-Atlantic and South can grow very delicious fruit- I've always been impressed with how good fruit can taste in the U.S. once it's actually grown right instead of bought from a typical grocery store. BTW lots of fruit is now being imported to Iran along the same lines of typical grocery store fruit here and it's messing up the market for good tasting local fruit. I'm afraid in very short time if not already typical Iranian fruit markets will be worse than grocery store fruit here... before they all see the light again and start going old school/eco-friendly/green/homegrown/local/organic what have you like what's happening here.

Olga, you should write a rose book for the Mid-Atlantic, your information is INVALUABLE I swear. Even as anecdote, this is highly likely to be true. Perhaps you could collaborate with Molineux, and your colleagues nearby in northern Virginia (& perhaps a few in the Philadelphia, &/or southern New Jersey/Delaware area). You would at the least provide very significant info. to rose breeders elsewhere curious to know what their rose progeny face in "ground zero" for blackspot. ;) (Nothing like suggesting work for others, is there? ;) ) (My very humid climate is also very subject to blackspot, but unlike in the Philadelphia area I note that here the disease appears to be more spotty in its severity. The warm/sticky portion of the summer here is much less long, lasting typically only from early-mid July through mid-August, and even then normally only in spurts during that time. In a warm year without spraying symptoms normally first appear within a week or two of the burst of bloom at the end of the late spring/early summer, but in other years symptoms may not appear until mid-July, and then fade out by the end of August as long as an organic fertilizer such as "Rose Tone" is regularly applied according to recommendations (I use "Garden Tone", but no matter, it largely works the same way).) Regardless, Olga, thank you for passing along your experience with Joyce Barden. As a consequence I know it is likely to be problematic for me.

shastensis, According to Dr. Bob Zybach of Oregon the old growth in the Northwest was comparable to today's old growth over a century ago in the settlement era. He studied fire history in the state of Oregon and believes most of the trees were second growth when the white man came. Zybach has said reports of Douglas fir in excess of 300 feet are mostly stories that cannot be documented, and he has said that the city of Vancouver BC was a prairie before the white man came. I think his views are the minority opinion. He was a reforestation contractor for 20 years, so I value his input. Most estimates I have seen suggest between 70 and 90% of the biggest and oldest Douglas fir forests have been logged in the past 130 years. In some places like Southern Vancouver Island up to 99% of old growth fir is said to be gone. One need only look at the hundreds of old logging photos of giant fir and cedar to get an idea of how large the lowland forests once grew, and in places like present day Seattle, and Vancouver BC. To deny all of this pretty much tells me one would have to be a lobbyist for the timber industry, but that is just my gut feeling.

I am wondering if anyone else is attempting to grow Tri-Lite Peach / Plum hybrids or any of the other Zaiger Hybrids ( Pluots, Pluerrys, etc.) in the south along the gulf coast? I have planted a few over the last couple of years, though the only one to fruit so far is the Tri-Lite on Lovell rootstock which I planted about 14 months ago. I live about 80 miles inland in western Louisiana along the 8b/9a line, we average about 600 chill hours per year here, though some years we get as high as 1,300 or as low as 450, this year it was just under 600. I am growing in native sandy loam soil that is nutrient deficient which has a pH of about 5.8 and have been fertilizing with a local commercial fruit tree 18-9-11 fertilizer blend, that was formulated for a nearby pecan orchard. I was concerned about souther disease pressure on these west coast developed hybrids, but so far they seem to be surviving with the Tri-Lite in particular thriving, it does require spraying the same as all other stone fruit in the region, but overall seems to be out performing some of my other regionally developed peaches and plums (LSU peaches, Auburn and Texas A&M Plums). I also planted a Flavor Grenade Pluot in the spring of 2017, it is growing ok, but failed to have any blooms this year, as well as a Spice-Zee nectaplum and a Sweet Treat Pluerry that I planted in April of this year, so too soon to tell on those.