Thought it might be interesting to follow my first attempts at grafting goumi scions.
Sweet Scarlet
Assorted varieties on 1st rootstock
Assorted varieties on 2nd rootstock
Assorted varieties on 1st rootstock
Assorted varieties on 2nd rootstock
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How would you describe goumi taste?
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Can’t answer because I have never tasted one. It is reported to taste similar to a sour cherry.
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Good luck with your grafting to Autumn Olive. My local nursery only have what was labeled as elaeagnus which is what I used as rootstock. I plan to air lay some if they grow off well.
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In my location I can graft almost any time while plants are dormant. One was grafted about 6 weeks ago and the other about 4 weeks ago. Both appear to be bonding.
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Little sweet, little sour, mixed with little tart taste
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Those are likely autumn olive if they are labeled elaeagnus because elaeagnus umbellata are technically autumn olive and elaeagnus multiflora are goumi Planning on a big autumn olive harvest
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I have only tasted “Red Gem” from Burnt Ridge Nursery. I would say that it is only suitable as bird food. Sour and astringent and mostly seed. I would like to graft it over to something better if there is such a plant.
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I like goumi. I think it is a good mix of tart and sweet. Pie cherries have that strong cherry taste-even stronger than sweet cherries. They have a similar mix of sweet and tart. They have a chewable seed. It is astonishingly beautiful as it ripens. It is bigger than autumn olive, and ripens at a different time of the year, which I like a lot.
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`[quote=“IL847, post:7, topic:21498, full:true”]
Little sweet, little sour, mixed with little tart taste
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I think of “tart” and “sour” as synonyms.
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I like guomi, have two varieties but also have enjoyed fruit from what I believe are seedlings. The one’s I grow are much better if they are allowed to hang until they soften and long after they’ve fully colored. They lose nearly all of their astringency and are much better.
My 7 year old daughter likes them too.
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In my taste, tart=astringent a bearable astringent. Some persimmons are astringent but not sour so your sour=tart is a little strange
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I would call it sour cherry with a cross of the dryness that can rage from Pomegranate to persimmon if unripe.
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Tart cherry and sour cherry are synonyms.
Astringent is not as common a word as either one of those.
Tea is sometimes referred to as both bitter and astringent without sugar.
IPA beers are prized for bitterness among beer snobs.
Sour beers are a different thing.
In American culture, we don’t seem to value astringent or bitter very much. In Europe, bitter greens and salads are quite popular, but they aren’t as popular here.
Perhaps apple cider is where we, as fruit orchardists, would most commonly seek the differences between bitter, astringent, sour, and sweet for full flavor.
In Chinese and Ayurvedic (India) medicinal traditions, they make the distinctions between sweet, sour, bitter, astringent, and pungent and they have medical benefits for each. Maybe that is why many of us have different preferences for flavors of fruits.
John S
PDX OR
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Funny story, I think I actually had this fruit in Ukraine and I only now realize that in English its called goumi.
The ones I tried had the texture of a cherry but with the taste of a cranberry. Seed was pretty large and the flesh was semi-sweet and sour with a slight amount of astringency. Not very juicy.
It had potential to be good, but needed to be a lot more sweetness to offset the astringency and lack of juice.
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In the Ukraine you likely had a close relative. We call that plant autumn olive, goumi is an Asian relative that is less invasive which is a problem. In the US, the native American relative is called buffalo berry and there is a se Asian family member called So-Shang.
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I looked up the autumn olive and it doesn’t look like what I ate. The fruit I ate were elongated, looked exactly like the image below but I recall the skin being smoother. But I could be misremembering and you might be right.
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That looks like one of my goumi’s sweet Scarlett, I also have raintree select seedling who’s fruit are maybe half the size but twice as many. The weird wonderful thing about this family of plants is there radically different ripening and bloom times. Goumi will ripen late spring early summer. While autumn olive you can guess by the name in the fall. Another hybrid which name escapes me will just be blooming at that time
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I like goumis. My kids not so much
Anyone ever had or seen the goumi relative trezibond date? I wish i had orderes one years ago.
Scott
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From what I’ve read, the Sweet Scarlet variety was developed at The Main Botanic Garden in Kiev, Ukraine
I have Sweet Scarlet and Red Gem.
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