I’m in southern NY State and a couple of grafts I made from a tree that died before bloom have given me crop on 2 consecutive years after a long wait compared to most a Js.
It is similar to a pluot in being sweet while still quite crisp, although it hasn’t reached the brix level of the pluots I grow… I just measured one at about 17-18, which is a good number for J. plums in this region. I don’t know how high that number will go for the ones still on the tree- but some have rotted and I’m not doing any more spraying.
It’s good enough for me and I consider it a very good plum but I’ve heard it’s a shy cropper. Anyone else growing it in the north-east or mid-east?
Really, no one here grows this in the NE? It always scores well in Dave Wilson taste tests and seems to be a very useful plum here. I’m just posting this comment to give it another shot at being seen by anyone who grows it, east or west. How reliable a cropper is it?
West coast pluots and plums that are resistant to bacterial spot are the easiest to manage in the humid region, but Zaiger doesn’t track this… we are on our own. EB seems resistant.
I have an emerald beaut tree but it hasn’t flowered yet. this was the second year in the ground and it’s growing well. Maybe next year It will flower.
I’ve had the fruit from a local orchard and it’s delicious, I agree it’s very pluot-like. I just hope my squirrels will let me keep some fruit on the tree long enough to fully ripen.
You’re talking about ‘Emerald Beaut’ plum right (no “y” on the cultivar name)? I’ve been growing it for a few years now, but haven’t gotten a crop yet. It sure is a weird looking tree overall. It has narrow leaves and a tendency to push lots of dense clusters of them along the stems. Despite being young, mine has pushed some flowers, but they seem to by kind of small and don’t open wide. They also seem to be pretty fully leafed out before reaching peak bloom (at least based on what I’ve seen so far).
Weird appearance aside, I’m really looking forward to having a late ripening plum to extend my season.
Thank you, now I’ve learned that Dave Wilson shortened its name but it is registered as Emerald Beauty in its patent. I will change my heading and see if I get any more response. I assume that just about every source of it calls it what Wilson does because they are the only licensed propagators of it.
In CHATS words, Some nursery catalogs (especially when space is tight) shorten it to Emerald Beaut, but the cultivar was released and is recognized in the trade as Emerald Beauty — one of Floyd Zaiger’s introductions.
Don’t trust AI to give you valid info. Here’s a link to the patent on Google. It is recorded as ‘Emerald Beaut’ without a “y” on the patent itself.
I believe the word “Beaut” without a “y” was used as homage to “Red Beaut” which is in its ancestry (and that plum was also used in the ancestry of many pluots which may be why they have similarities to ‘Emerald Beaut’).
I’ve been growing this off and on for quite awhile, I didn’t have a good graft and it’s been quite slow to fruit. The few fruits I have gotten have been very good, and I have a full tree of it I started a few years ago so should get more in a few years.
The fruits can be eaten over a long period, they are more crisp and sour at the start and become more soft and less sour later. The later pickings I like the best, it’s one of the best plums when picked late and with a rich and unique flavor compared to the other types of Japanese plums and pluots.
I hope one of these years I can have a big tree with lots of these plums.
Well, almost only. CHAT managed to find a single nursery that changed it to Beauty. I’m going to check my label, although it won’t prove much because I wrote it.
I get misinformation from CHAT about once a week, but a lot of solid info in between. I just have to remember to always double check and interrogate it if someone else suggests that its mistaken or if the info is important to me. It doesn’t mind admitting mistakes, at least. That’s not always the case with humans.
After looking over the ancestry of ‘Emerald Beaut’ on the patent, I’m now really curious what the ancestry of ‘Red Beaut’ is. It sure must be special since it’s gone into the breeding for so many other varieties (especially pluots). I just can’t find any reliable info about who developed it or how.
My in-law has a nursery grafted tree of Emerald Beaut, tree is a medium size, hardly ever fruits, not a good tree to me. Probably will graft over it or get rid of it and plant a better tree like Splash or Emerald Drop.
I don’t think you get nearly the chill hours required for it. It is not a good choice in the higher numbered zones. Emerald Beaut | Dave Wilson Nursery
Maybe some of its rep as a shy bearer is because it requires both a long growing season and a lot of chill hours. I think it is also a late bloomer, so to speak, (not late in the season to bloom but late in its life) like Elephant Heart.
I agree completely after enjoying it from grafts for the last couple of seasons.
Where we disagree is with Ruby Queen. I just ate one and enjoy it as much as EB. It’s meatier and softer, but deeply sweet and rich, with just enough tart to please when completely ripe… which takes a very long time after being fully colored. Unfortunately, for the first time I have a deer that stretches up on its hind legs to harvest fruit and got half of that crop along with bushels of apples and peaches. Maybe I should try Ivory soap. In the past, all my deer have been more interested in leaves than fruit- but they haven’t reached high to browse them either.
Of course, the difference might be based on regioin and not tastes.
Ruby Queen was sometimes great, the main issue I had was it was not consistent from year to year. I had two really great red-flesh plums it was competing with, Purple Heart and Satsuma, and those two came out on top. Also Mariposa.
Re: deer, my deer seem to be able to reach a bit higher each year. As I raise up my tree branches they get more skilled on standing on their hind legs. But they are slowly losing the battle, my trees are getting taller and taller. I don’t mind if they get a few, the problem is when they take most or all of the crop.
You have a much different way of evaluating fruit than I do, it seems. I’m not interested in the best tasting plums of the summer so much as in any given window of harvest. Maybe your sequencing is different, but here Satsuma ripens 2-3 weeks ahead of RQ… I also get better fruit overall from the RQ at my site, but I manage a couple other sites where Sat has very high quality, and a couple others where it doesn’t size up or get as sweet as it does at the best sites.
I find Satsuma to be a really weird plum that way. I think that the more orchards you manage the more mysterious it becomes. My Satsuma dived in quality when I grafted Reema to the tree… Chat suggests it may be outcompeting it for resources, but I have difficulty assigning that to a logical picture. Reema IS considerably more vigorous, however.
At at least one site I manage, Satsuma produced large, low brix fruit until this year. At my site they’ve become small and low brix. Anytime it bears a crop (most seasons) so does Ruby Queen, but not as heavy… so I don’t have to thin much.
Also, Ruby Queen makes the most beautiful sauce I’ve ever seen. Unfortunately there will be no sauce this year… that deer got too much of the crop.
Anyway, each of us can provide our own observations but no one should expect those to mirror the results of their own orchards, even in the same region.
Though my ‘Emerald Beaut’ has not yet fruited, it has produced at least a small number of flowers each year, beginning at year one. I don’t think it needs to mature too much to start flowering, but does still need to settle in a bit before flowering heavily. I think the combination of only small numbers of flowers (not enough to get bees excited about visiting) along with its late blooming (season wise) with minimal overlap with my other plums are why I haven’t gotten fruit yet, but I suspect in another year or two it’ll start flowering more heavily based on how it’s been progressing each year.
I’m in California, about an hour north of San Francisco. We have enough chill most years for almost all fruit. Emerald Beaut does not seem to need more than my Pluots or Asian plums. But it does bloom very late in the season, so late-blooming plums and/or pluots are needed to set good crops. Flavor King Pluot, Broken Heart and Elephant Heart Asian plums seem to be the ones that bloom at about the same time in my orchard.
I always though Elephant Heart played a key role in pluot breeding, or should say I guessed. Tell me about varieties used- especially about Red Beaut plum
ChatGPT said:
You guessed right — Elephant Heart was indeed one of the foundational parents Zaiger drew from when he was creating pluots. It gave that dense, richly flavored, blood-red flesh that shows up in some of the darker pluots (Flavor Supreme, Flavor King, Flavor Heart, etc.). But it was only one piece of the puzzle.
Here’s what we know about the breeding stock, especially Red Beaut:
Elephant Heart (Burbank introduction, ~1929)
Very large, heart-shaped, purple-red skin, deep red flesh.
Late ripening, very firm, high quality when fully ripe.
Used in Zaiger’s pluot program for its firm texture, storage ability, and red flesh color.
Also contributes that distinctive sweet-tart “plum punch” flavor to certain pluots.
Red Beaut (Burbank seedling, Zaiger favorite)
Released by Luther Burbank’s associates after his death.
Very early ripening Japanese plum (June in CA), bright red skin, yellow flesh.
Tree is precocious and highly productive, though fruit is smaller.
Zaiger himself often cited Red Beaut as the “backbone” pollenizer in his breeding blocks.
It was indispensable in pluot development because it:
Flowers early and reliably, ensuring pollen was available when the apricot side of the hybrids bloomed.
Transmitted precocity and productivity into the breeding line.
Balanced out late, shy-bearing parents like Elephant Heart.
Other Key Plums in Zaiger’s Pluot Work
Santa Rosa – contributed its famous aromatic flavor and juice.
Kelsey / Kelsey-seedlings – for size and green-to-yellow color traits.
Late firm reds (Fortune, Wickson, Mariposa types) – used to push ripening windows and flesh color diversity.
How Red Beaut + Elephant Heart Complemented Each Other
Red Beaut = precocity, pollen, early ripening genes, productivity.
Elephant Heart = firmness, red flesh, late ripening, dense texture.
Together, they provided Zaiger with opposite ends of the plum spectrum — one early and prolific, the other late and shy — which he could blend with apricot germplasm to carve out entirely new fruit types (pluots/apriums).