thanks. corrected that one.
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Two thoughts per the numerous comments above:
Honeyberries seem to do fine in zone 6.
And, yes, I’ve been eating the wild black cherries for over 50 years. (Just don’t swallow a bunch of the seeds inside them.)
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Information like these where they grow best should be included in their descriptions.
Yes, Joe is in 9b so a heads up was warranted. They are not stone fruit, and I only mentioned them because both the dwarf sour cherry and honeyberries were hybridized by U. of Sas.
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There is another cherry plum hybrid (P. cerasifera x P. armeniaca): Biricoccolo (Prunus dasycarpa). In europe this hybrid is cultivated in italy. Different varieties are known.
The tree is as hardy as myrobalane and early blooming. Its growing weaker than myrobalane and apricot. Cuttings are rooting fairly easy. I will experiment with em as a rootstock for E. plums, J. Plums, Apricots and Hybrids.
The fruit is said to be tasty (sweet-tart plum taste). My trees didn’t fruit yet (2nd year).
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Thanks Drew. Of course, not nearly all honeyberries are developed not patented by U. of Saskatchewan.
But, you’re right, zone 9 would be a trial with risks for sure for the edible honeysuckle.
I hope yours taste better then the ones I got at the market last year.
Got mine from a friend who likes them. What was the problem with yours, just bland?
just bland, but I dont judge a fruit by the grocery store.
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will add it.
This has been a fun brain dump but I am not sure what your out to accomplish. Wild populations often show a lot of variability and cultivars have been selected to because they express certain traits. While you might be able to come up with a good generic description of Beach Plum or Nanking cherry, because hey have had less selection performed. It is near impossible to pin any good discerption on Japanese plum P. Salicina I honestly do not think any Japanese plum on the common market has not been outcrossed at some point and many cultivars are lumped to Japanese plum that are not such as Shiro which is a complex hybrid of P.simonii x P.cerasifera x P.munsoniana .
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We’re getting ready to create a long term project for the group about the stone group cultivars and their descriptions. Many of us grow different stone fruits across the US and we have the most diversified group of growers, so we should build some sort of a database where members can contribute their pictures and descriptions of the stone fruits that they’re growing. It is also important to know at least the major species or hybrid grouping so that it would be easier for us to map out compatibilities in grafting. So am tying to establish the major grouping first. I can understand that we have today many complex hybrids, especially with plums and they are just simplified into two common groups, European plums or Asian Plums depending on the most dominant phenotypic expression of the fruit. At least this is the first attempt. I already have compiled descriptions of more than 200 stone fruits that I am growing and it is in a spreadsheet. Will try to see the best way to convert it into a wiki-like page where regular members can edit and contribute. This would be an ongoing project as we have always new cultivars coming every year and being tried in various places.
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I would sagest adding North American types as a third category for the various wild plums and cultivated varieties that mostly have North American genetics since some of them are more like Euro plums and others are more like Asian plums and some seem to be equally compatible or incompatible with either. God bless.
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I like what your doing. I just don’t think that grouping by hybrid would be a reliable qualifier. The research programs that gave us the Toka, Waneta, Black Ice etc made many dozens of crossings and most of those F1 crossings where just genetic duds. And the cultivars that made it though selection are of good quality but to different from each other to make reliable extrapolations. On the other hand virtually every P. Avium x P. salicina has failed to yield the holy grail of a plum size cherry. The same thing is true F1 Apricot x Plums Plumcots, Luther Burbank made many but none where notable till Zaigers F2 and F3 Pulots. Pulots now have such a wide variety of expressed traits and lineages. To much to make any predictions.
I think how P. Domestica has been broken down into Gage, Damson, Mirabelle, prune etc is more usefull. I hope to eat a gage this year but I have eaten Damsons and prunes, they are both very different from any Japanese plum or apricot I tasted. If there is a pulot with a gage flavor that might be useful to know. How many flavor families can we think of. Sweet Cherry, Sour Cherry
your missing Sloe Prunus Spinosa Mongolian Cherry P. fruticosa , P x Kerrais (cerasus x frutcosa) University of Saskatchewan dwarf cherry P x eminens (cerasus x frutcosa) natural crosses.
We know that it’s a big challenge and we don’t have resources to run genetic tests but we have to start somewhere from what we know about the stone fruits that we grow. At least these combined knowledge should be tremendously better even if we don’t know accurately their composition. In the absence of definite lineage, we should at least group them phenotypically, otherwise based on what is known genetically.
OK, since I am trying to help Georgia Southern develop an inventory of Chickasaw type plums and have a thread here devoted to them, let me start out by listing the Chickasaw varieties that I know about. A little later I will offer what I know of a description of each. I’m defining “Chickasaw type” as plums with primarily Chickasaw genes and showing mostly Chickasaw morphology. For example, while Robusto is a hybrid with P. salicina, it’s growth habit, leaf morphology and even fruit appearance and flavor is more “Chickasaw” than Asian.
Key morphological characteristics of the plant. The wild type is a small willowy tree that forms dense colonies through profuse suckering. Trees are rarely get more than 15 foot tall, but the cultivate varieties can get much taller, up to 25 foot. The leaves are narrowly lanceolate (long, skinny, lance shaped), cerate or crenulate with a gland on the underside for each tooth. They bloom early and for clingstone fruit that tend to be soft and watery when ripe. The skin is usually tart but the flesh can be tart to very sweet. With most of them there is a distinctive herbal aftertaste that I expressly associate with Chickasaw plums and Chickasaw hybrids.
Cultivated varieties that I know about:
Excelsior: The mostly yellow “Excelsior plum” (there is a red one that’s an Asian X American hybrid) early producing variety that was originally found in Excelsior Georgia in 1919 and introduced into cultivation by a nursery in St. Mary’s Georgia. (I’ve never seen one.)
Guthrie: Mostly yellow to red plum, early ripening. (Photo and description forth coming).
Odom: A red plum, late ripening, sweeter than Guthrie. Photo coming
McKibben: A bright red plum. Very sweet but with tart skin. Photo coming
Toole’s Heirloom. An orangy red plum that’s between the size of a ping pong ball and a golf ball with soft but very sweet clingstone fruit with greenish yellow flesh. Labe variety ripening in late June in Bulloch County Georgia, Zone 8b. Large tree for a Chickasaw (20-25 ft.). Suckers profusely when on its own root.
Bouie: A variety that was passed around the African American community in Bulloch County a generation ago and originated with the Bouie family in Brooklet Georgia. I’ve never seen it. The last known population was destroyed by goats about ten years ago. I’ve only heard people talk about how good it was and the descriptions seem similar to Toole’s Heirloom. If those two tern out to be the same, preference should be given to the Bouie name. We can’t know if they are the same or not unless I find a known Bouie Plum or I find someone who know where my dad got his original Toole’s Heirloom. God bless.
Marcus
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Still…it might be interesting to experiment if honeyberries would perform OK in shade of dappled shade locations as far south as zone 9.
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Excellent Marcus!
I don’t know never had a gage! Howard Miracle is supposed to be a cross of Green Gage and Satsuma hence the name. I heard the taste is like pineapple or grapefruit. Crossed by Frederick H. Howard in 1946.