Going to pick on Royal Crimson. I am very grateful for all of these releases but I say this for the people who say “I had better get Royal Crimson so I don’t have to worry about pollination.” This is a typical branch of royal crimson. 3 cherries.
Note that both Royal Lee and Minnie Royal have scattered bloom with some remaining flowers. They do a good job pollinizing each other on full grown trees. If we want a third pollinizer for these, it should be something that tastes better, like Royal Lynn?
Two years in a row, full Moorpark apricot crop. This is on apricot seedling, which I did for more vigor.
I found that Thomas Knight in 1812 reported better success for the Moorpark apricot on seedling rootstock as well. Note this was just one tree. But the challenge with Moorpark is keeping the tree healthy, so using apricot seedling rootstock makes a lot of sense!
… I am not acquainted with any advantages that can be obtained from selecting stocks of a species different from the inserted bud or graft, except where it is necessary to render any tree more dwarfish and governable, and therefore more productive, in soils and situations where exuberance of growth and health might prove injurious…
I am engaged in some experiments with the view of ascertaining the advantages or disadvantages of stocks of different species, in the culture of the Peach and Nectarine, and the Apricot, and I should have waited the result of those experiments, but that I felt anxious to state to the Horticultural Society the following circumstance respecting the Moor Park Apricot. This tree, in my garden, as in many others, becomes, in a very few years, diseased and debilitated, and generally exhibits, in spaces near the head of its stock, lifeless alburnum, beneath a rough and scabrous bark.
Sixteen or seventeen years ago, a single plant of this variety was obtained by grafting upon an Apricot stock; and the bark of this tree still retains a smooth and polished surface; and the whole tree presents a degree of health and vigour so perfectly different to any other tree of the same kind in my garden, that I have found it difficult to convince gardeners who have seen it, of its specific identity.
My grandfather and great grandfather typically put plum on peach rootstock - they lived in very moist western oregon and it was to increase resistance to certain disease as well as improve vigor I believe.
Fruit set on Coral, a low chill cherry, sister of Brooks. Brooks fruits well also but Coral appears to be lower chill and gets the edge on productivity so far.
Brooks pollinizer branch on a Royal Lee tree. This was intended to provide overlap with late Royal Lee bloom. This tree bloomed earlier than the other Minnie Royal with the late Royal Lee branch (confusing!)
Sugar Twist pluerry is as productive here as Flavor Grenade. If you want to guarantee success with pluots in a So Cal yard, Geo Pride fruited so much it broke my branch and killed my graft, Flavor Grenade is always loaded with fruit, and Sugar Twist pluerry. There are probably others too. My favorite is Flavor King, which gives me light production most years and I have no complaints.
A graft of Elephant Heart flowered MUCH better than Broken Heart. I grafted this for late season pollinizing of Flavor Punch but Flavor Punch has only the start of scattered bloom. Very good compact late bloom on Elephant Heart.
Black Pearl cherry appears to be setting better than expected again. It is a member of the Coral, Brooks and Black Pearl club of low chill cherries that are suited for pollinating each other in low chill areas of inland Southern California.
Plum crop:
Flavor Grenade overcropped, as always
Flavor King 100% crop, and evenly spaced. Minimal thinning needed. Great fortune that the best flavored pluot blooms for 6 weeks and still makes a full crop.
Beauty: 100%, overcropped actually.
Flavor Finale: no crop, did fruit a few last year which were not as good as Flavor King
Howard Miracle: no crop but sick graft.
Dapple Dandy: probably no crop, just finishing bloom
Elephant Heart: finishing bloom now
Pluerries:
Sugar Twist overcropped, as is typical
Nadia: no crop but just 2nd year
Sweet Treat: just 1 fruit on a small tree that I grafted to something else. It produces well here in general.
Flavor Punch: probably no crop, poor flowering
Summary: not sure I accomplished much beyond the tried and true Flavor King with Flavor Grenade to pollinize it. I would love to hear from others in So Cal what pluots they have success with.
Peach/Nectarine crop:
Almost everything fruited well. Surprises include:
Snacktime (2nd year)
Lola (amazing yellow nectarine from Arboreumco)
Peacot (a forgotten cultivar, but overcropped on every graft)
Gold Dust heavy crop again, required thinning
White Diamond from Burchell gave a heavy crop
Kaweah and OHenry gave 80% crops. No thinning but balanced production.
Arctic Glo gave a full crop
Spice Zee and August Pride gave lighter crops. Shows the value of local adaptation testing because many high chill cultivars outperformed these.
Apricot crop this year was surprising:
-Tropic Gold <25% crop after a heavy year, attributed to alternate bearing and timing of rain
-Nicole ranged from <20% to 80% depending on the graft, attributed to timing of rain
-Blenheim ranged from 30% to >100%, depending on the tree or graft. Attributed to alternate bearing and rain
-Redsweet (sport of Blenheim) was >100%, required thinning, on large tree
-Moorpark was 60% crop on citation, 100% on seedling rootstock
-Flavor Delight 60% crop
-Summer Delight 20% crop
-Stan’s E08 graft on a single specimen showed 100% fruit set (!). A pleasant surprise.
-Hunza graft offered 0% fruit set again.
-Puget Gold graft fruits well every year but the fruit are not that good here.
If I had not fruited Moorpark so well, in my earlier days of growing I would have thought the chill was the problem. There is a lot of randomness to this and it seems that rain timing plays a big factor.
Flavor Grenade and Dapple Supreme are the only ones I’ve tried. Along with Spice Zee Nectaplum. They’ve been slow to launch - '23 ones arent big enough to produce. Grafted more this year, but taking their sweet time getting going too. Still cold up here in the high desert/mtns though.
GeoPride is very good to excellent, very sweet with a nice flavor. Splash, when left to hang long enough approaches GeoPride in quality. I would grow both, but for me they take too long to ripen, I suspect they need warmer summers or more sun than what I had in Delaware. I may add them to my current orchard, as I have a few more hours of sun to my days here.
Emerald drop is the worst cracker (from rain) that I saw, so couldn’t taste a single fruit in the 3 years I cropped it (cracking is followed by ants and rotting). Several seasoned members here highly praised it. I would grow it if my summers were dry.
I planted CHP in my current orchard, and if lucky, this year will be my first crop.
I’ve also had very good fruit set on a Flavor King though that my 3rd smallest branch on the 4-way multi graft pluot. It might be close to 100% and I will definitely need to thin heavily.
Flavor Grenade didn’t fruit well - maybe has 1 - though the branch seems the worst placed between the 4.
Flavor Queen is extremely vigorous but has set about 10-20 fruit even though it’s branches on the same multi-graft are many times the size of the others. I’m considering grafting over it after this season - with Flavor Grenade and Flavor King.
Dapple Dandy has about 30-50-•% fruit set.
Satsuma Plum also has high fruit set this year - about 70-80%.
Santa Rosa plum hasn’t even woken up yet (!!).
