Cherry-Plums

What our some of your opinions on cherry-plums like Compass or Sapalta? Are they worth growing if I have and can grow sour, sweet, and bush cherries, as well as hybrid and european plums? Is there anything unique in taste/texture/etcetera, I will be missing?

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I grew Sprite from 2005-2012 as nursery stock where it was pollinated by japanese plums. It was one of our favorite fruits.

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Hi Richard. How would you describe the taste of sprite? Is it like your regular plum like Santa Rosa or Beauty?

@John_P
A Santa Rosa type flavor, but the least tart skin of any plum I grew at that location (usda 9A, ~250 chill hours). The others were Standard Santa Rosa, Beauty, and a Green Gage.

So between the 4 of them it was the best tasting? I also live in 9a. Thank you Richard!

@John_P
There are a variety of plum flavors, as there are a variety of citrus flavors. I preferred the Sprite over the Santa Rosa, my spouse preferred the Beauty, the majority of my customers were sold on the Santa Rosa. Now the Green Gage is in a different category, like Grapefruit vs Oranges. Look for Stan’s comments in this long thread: Green Gage: The Holy Grail Of Stone Fruits

Ah ok thank you for clarifying it. I’m just excited. I have the 2 in 1 sprite and delight. I hope it will fruit this coming season.

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Honestly there are a lot of plum crosses. Aprium, pluerry, pluot and the Nadia plum is a 50/50 cross of plum and cherry. Of course they all very by cold temperatures they can handle. I know many of those varieties sell out very fast. I tried pluots last year and they were amazing. My local grocery store used to carry pluerry but I have not seen them in recent years.

I have Sapalta. Flesh is sweet and flavorful but the skin is very, very astringent and the astringency is in the flesh a little bit also. Gives it a nice vinous flavor, but the astringency is strong. Probably would be really good for jelly. They flower very late and fruit reliably. Very dark red all the way through.

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That is good to know, thank you. It sound like it would make a good additive to juice/wine mabey?

I think so. I only have a few grafts right now. I’m looking to buy a few bushes this year.

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