Thought I would introduce a for fun survey. I’m interested in the opinions.
What fruit do you believe has the widest array of taste between individual varieties.
I am casting my vote for gooseberry with asian plum coming in second. Gooseberry varieties each have a pretty different taste.
raspberries can be pretty variable as well as currants. black raspberry compared to a red or gold is night and day. black , red, white and pink currants all have different flavor profiles. i agree gooseberry is in there also. some apples are insanely different.
Well I would say nectarines from white low acid like the honey series or with a kick yet more sugar than peaches the yellow like Fantasia to the acid cranberry red like Arctic Glo
Figs vary tremendously too. The basic groups like sugar honey and berry. But each group has a wide range of flavors. Some flavors are complex with a start and a finish. My favorite fig is col de dam gris. I like it better than black Madeira. Which is a very fine complex exotic berry flavor.
I would say pears, only because I’m not even sure if asian and euro pears could be considered as the same fruit. lol
What’s even crazier to me is that the exact same variety will taste wildly different as the season progresses. A fig early on in the season is totally different in taste and texture compared to the same exact variety late in the season.
My 1st vote goes to figs. I wouldn’t own >50 varieties otherwise.
My 2nd vote goes to apples. I wouldn’t own >30 varieties otherwise.
I agree that there is good range among raspberries and plums.
Apples. You got spiters out there that you would think are worthless and yet makes the best cider. Or you like them sweet? Do you like them crisp? Crumbly? Acidic? Fresh eating? Baking? For butter? For juice? Cider? Need to grow one in zone 1? Zone 10? Early season? Late season? Long keeping?
My favorite eating apple is Prairie Magic. Most haven’t even heard of it and that’s the thing; with 7,500 varieties there is one out there for every taste.
I agree with apples. So many different flavors and textures
I don’t grow apples but they do seem to have so many differences as Don pointed out. I forgot to mention blackberries if you include the hybrids. I enjoy the hybrids so much. Most will not grow well here, yet I manage to get some every year. Tayberries that taste like strawberries to the tart boysenberry or wyeberry with a very unique flavor. Or Newberry with a noticeable raspberry finish after the fantastic blackberry flavor And the reining king of blackberries all pale in comparison to the Marionberry. Blackberries certainly do not taste alike.
Certainly not all are great. A fruit you need to grow to get perfectly ripe fruit. You will never catch me buying them. All picked firm sort of ripe. No thanks!!
To me, peaches/nectarines - anywhere from white donuts which are basically candies, to yellows and whites with a slap on your face sharpness like June pride or Snow Queen to low-acid ones like honey series that taste like tropical fruit. I think the availability of such wide flavors is more correlated with the amount of time and money spent on breeding Vs the species itself. If the same resources were spent on loquats we would have much more varieties than we have currently, I’d think.
Its a tie for me, peaches and apples.
Figs. Persimmons.
it’s a bit of a unfair comparison imo.
Apples for example contain genetics from multiple apple “species” just like plums.
And black rasphberry’s are a different species from “normal” rasphberry’s for example. So are blackberry’s and rasphberry’s and their hybrids.
Almost none of the fruits we’r eating is “pure” anymore. Most are some form of stabalised hybrids if not just a plain hybrid.
If you draw the line at graft compatibility id choose
-pitfruit (apple pear asain pear quince mespilus germanica and loquat)
If you draw the line at them being able to hybridise. id choose
-prunus family that can hybridise. (apricot plums etc)
If you draw the line at the same botanical name classification if choose.
-apple (malus domestica)
or
-fig (Ficus carica)
This is a great question. It seems like maybe cherries have the least variation? Not that there isn’t diversity but it seems to be less complex.