Do you have another plum/pluot as pollinator for your Grenade? I just want to make sure all those fruitlets are pollinated and will not drop on their own in a couple of weeks.
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Iāll happily spend time thinning knowing Iām getting my first fruit.
I always wondered why I read to thin after fruit sizes a lot more than Iād think. Maybe because they are waiting for natural drop before finishing it by hand.
Iām thinking thinning to one fruit every 5-6 inches.
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I canāt grow them on my property although it sets fruit just fine, although most J. plums require a lot of thinning and I donāt find FG to be more a hassle than others to thin- Iām comparing it to other J. plums-not other pluots.
Wasps tend to destroy the fruit before it ripens for me on years it sets well. On other sites with just grafted branches attached to a J. plum they donāt seem to illicit so much attention; They can certainly be a pleasing late plum when harvested firm-ripe. Crunchy sugar juice.
Maybe I should cut down my tree and graft the variety to something else. I donāt need that much of its fruit since it really only excels for fresh eating. Keeps a long time in the fridge though when picked firm-ripe. Thatās what it was bred for.
Iāve never had a pluot self thin. But then Iāve always had a lot of pollinators. Most people solve the issue by leaving way to many fruit. Thatās not my style. But your tree is probably still small so it wonāt be that bad. Iād hate to have a hundred acres of FG in a commercial setting with big trees that need thinning by hand. That would be like setting your bank account on fire.
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Commercial growers thin plums and pluots?
Not sure about California, but here in the NE some of them even stopped thinning apples! I visited three orchards last year and their apples were very clearly not thinned, one owner even said it to me that he does not thin. So one year they will have a bumper crop of tasteless apples and the other year either no crop on that variety or a small tasty crop. It really annoys me, because I can no longer rely on orchards for stocking up on apples for the winter months, and my trees are still small and donāt produce enough to last a month.
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Yes, they do in CA. My neighbor had Santa Rosa and other plums and apricots he didnāt thin. Youād no believe how much fruit was on those trees.
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PS my Splash pluot graft on the Flavor Grenade seems to be takingā¦though looking at the tree today it probably doesnāt need another pollinator!
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Yup, it appears to be a standard management practice. https://coststudyfiles.ucdavis.edu/uploads/cs_public/05/1e/051eabc3-9bdd-45cc-9c85-f122f8f275f0/2016plumssjvfinaldraft112316.pdf
I donāt understand why a conventional commercial orchard would not at least thin apples chemically. That seems like a very poor business decision. Getting workers to do hand thinning can be next to impossible in this state. They prefer sitting on machinery, at least in my town.
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My husband and I went absolutely nuts over flavor grenadeās from the local farmers market. We were so pleased that we had already purchased a tree. It is young though, so I donāt know when we will get our own here. Most of the varieties I have I picked on advice and research.
We also have a flavor supreme but havenāt found any plums to try yet. I hope we like it, but I heard itās a stingy bearer and might even have a flower flaw that makes it hard to pollinate.
Anyways, itās been a few years now. How are you liking your flavor grenade tree?
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So this is the third year in the ground for my FG.
It has flowered each spring since the first year I planted it. The base is 2.5-3" in diameter, about 8 feet tall. Iāve been keeping the height managed by summer pruning.
This is the first year itās starting to size fruit.
Iāve never eaten a Flavor Grenade pluot but bought based on this forum and the fact the fruit holds on the tree for a long harvest. Stores here donāt sell any variety in fruit.
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Interesting! I āthinkā Iām going to get good fruit set on my plums and pluots for the first time this year (fingers crossed). Good to know they need such heavy thinning. Is a good rule of thumb to leave a single fruit about a fist apart? Local growers here have been saying to wait for the āMay dropā before thinning. Any advice on that?
And finally, I was wondering what you do with all the thinned fruit. Just leave it under the tree as a mulch? Because even in those tiny fruits, I bet the tree has put in a bunch of work and nutrients. So my thought was to mulch them.
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If I wait for the fruit to be much larger I was thinking of making plum extract. Many cultures figured out a way to eat as much of their resources as they could.
If I thin early I wonāt get that chance.
I know the resources the tree spends sizing the fruit I eventually remove will limit the growth, but in reality I donāt want a huge tree anyway.
Iāll have to do some thinking on this. Maybe I thin to twice what I think I should let ripen, then thin half when about half size to make he syrup.
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Thatās a nice tree. Not very big. Only a few hours over several sessions to thin.
It is usually stingy to bear but is one of the all time great fruits. Zaiger, the breeder, tested tens of thousands after this one but only stuck lightning in a box one time.
The flowers donāt interest bees so set can be little or nothing. Hand pollination is tedious but does the job if you have good pollen around.
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I donāt wait for May/June drop on anything. We get so much sun here that very little drops. And by then the tree really has wasted resources. Thin early and then thin again. Youāll still have too much fruit.
Iāve almost never thought I thinned too much. Have often thought not enough. And havenāt had drop after thinning. If you thin early and enough, half the fruit wonāt fall off later.
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That is good to hear Fruitnut. Although I have not tried a flavor supreme fruit as of yet, I have had dapple dandy.
I tried dapple dandy from the farmers market and I tried it from the grocery store and honestly I just donāt give a hoot about it and would never buy a tree.
Then I saw pictures of flavor supreme, and it looks like dapple dandy, and then I got worried that I was not going to like the fruit on that tree
What do you think of dapple dandy? How does it compare to flavor supreme?
I have also tried pluots from Trader Joeās, and nothing compares to our beloved flavor grenade that we got from the farmers market. Iām grateful that I will be getting able to get some this season and hopefully until my own tree produces.
What are some other great pluots?
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Dapple Dandy canāt hold a candle to FS. Itās like night and day. DD is OK. Iād certainly eat it if nothing else was ready. But there are many much better pluots.
The best pluots Iāve had are FS and F King. Many other good ones in the same class or better than FG.
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Flavor King and Geo Pride.
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The widely available ones that Iād avoid are DD and F Queen. FQ is very sweet but no flavor.
Also IME avoid Cot-n-candy and Flavor Delight apriums.
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