I have been checking Bay Laurel and GrowOrganic the last few weeks looking to order a few trees later this year and as of about a week ago they no longer have the Bella Gold Peacotums for sale. I wonder why they ditched them so quickly…if indeed they did quit selling them?
Probably because it’s a dog. It doesn’t set well at all and what little fruit I did get wasn’t nearly as good as plain apricots that matured at the same time, like Orangered here. Mine also had weird leaves that looked like virus infection. Maybe that was just my tree. But there were no good reports on DWN forums that I remember. Several reports of lack of setting despite hand pollination which I did as well.
It was a very pretty fruit with exotic parentage. I’d guess that’s why it was released.
I wasn’t impressed with Sweet Treat pluerry either but have a few ripening now. Maybe they’ll blow my socks off.
How is Sweet Treat setting for you? I am contemplating getting the pair of pluerries - Candy Heart and Sweet Treat.
The issue that scares me the most with the pluots, pluerries, peacotums, etc… is the late spring freezes wiping out the entire crop.
I had a late spring ice storm this year (after a week or so of 70’s) and it coated two blooming peaches with a layer of ice for 3 days. The ice melted and I actually got a few peaches out of trees on their first bloom, but I am not sure how the hybrids will react.
Sweet Treat at least sets great…but blooms earlier than adapted peaches. So will freeze out here 3 of 4 yrs. I’m going to try Candy Heart. It sounds better than Sweet Treat. But I really don’t have high hopes for either. Most likely they will just be small plums. By that I mean taste and crop like a small plum. Even if they taste like a cross of plum and sweet cherry, big deal. Most of those aren’t really all that rich tasting to me, really sweet, but not all that rich.
Yup. This year was my first for bloom for Sweet Treat and set was pretty good (maybe six dozen). Fruit was unimpressive but it is first year for fruit and this has been a strange weather. I also was fighting birds. The way the fruit sets (clustered together) means I will have to net the entire tree next season as individually bagging wasn’t working.
Back to the original question, Bella Gold Peacotum, I tried twice and never got good growth of the trees (both instances I was not happy with the initial roots on the bare root. Gophers helped kill off the second.
On the other hand a tri-lite peach bloomed for the first time an insane amount very late this year (with 250 chills) with zero fruit set. So late there were no other cross pollinators left except for a Carnival and some other high chill peach about 100 feet away on the other side of a shed which had limited bloom. That might be worth exploring as a more appropriate in your area…but it is effectively a peach.
FascistNation,
The tri-lite might be a decent candidate, especially if it is a late bloomer. I wonder if Spice-Zee Nectaplum would adapt to a later bloom in my weather?
Raintree Nursery has them on sale.
My two peacotums set fruit this year and last year, but late frosts wiped them out.
On the other hand, my pluerries survived this year’s frost. When the frost hit, I covered my pluots with cotton sheets, and the pluerries with newspapers, the multi-graft pluot lost about 80% of the fruit, and the pluerries had a zero percent crop loss. Also, two of the branches bloomed weeks apart. One bloomed two weeks later, and the second one bloomed a month later after the main bloom.
I like the flavor of Sweet Treat pluerries. When they were at their cruchy stage, they tasted like a plum, then cherry, and finally a tropical flavor dominated the fruit.
When they are about 80% ripe, they tasted like a peach, apricot, and cherry.
Now that are turning soft, the flesh resembles like that of a peach; And they have a mix of flavors. I gave a few to my neighboors last week, and they said that they taste like a plum and apricot with cherry after-taste. My brother’s girlfriend said that they taste like a Raineer cherry. My Mom says that they taste like plum and peach.
The ones that I’ve tasted today, the riper ones ones, taste like a peach and apricot, with no plum flavor detected.
Nectaplum produces a lot of flowers but a small crop. It’s paretage is, 50% Nectarine, 37.50 % peach, and 12.50% plum.
One more thing, if the pluerry is over-watered, the fruits will turn bland.
itheweatherman,
Thanks for all of the information. It is good to know the pluerries can take a frost hit. I will definitely need that in my area.
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Here’s the pluerry cut in half. The flesh is peach-like.
And the seed looks between a plum and cherry:
Sweet Treat Pluerry parentage is, 50% plum, 25% cherry, 18.75% peach, and 6.25% apricot.
