Loquats are quickly becoming one of my favorite fruit to grow — high brix — often over 20, excellent flavor, and of great landscape value as they are evergreen and have beautiful leaves.
They really must be grown more in the PNW.
They do great in pots too!
Yes, my Favorite fruits to grow and collect are the citrus and loquats. I have pretty much every variety that interests me.
@ramv @swincher
The loquat scions you shared with me earlier this summer are all growing well now. Thank you again!
My questions were just about propagating the cutting I have of a yehuda. What do you think about grafting this time of year?
What are the odds of rooting it in water or soil?
I haven’t been able to get loquat cuttings to root in a few attempts, but Fruitwood does it pretty successfully, and they told me their method of you wanted to try it:
I don’t know about grafting at this time, it seems pretty late, but I’ve also never tried.
Probably will just try rooting it this time and go with the grafting next season.
Hi @jsteph00921,
Marc at fruitwood has been able to root loquat cuttings as does Sam at OGW. But their success rate isn’t very high. In both cases, they used non lignified cuttings, to the best of my knowledge and a high humidity mist environment.
I did have a couple of vegetatively propagated loquats - both of which were propagated by air layering. But they died over winter.
My suspicion is that loquats produce weak roots when vegetatively propagated and that will lead to weak growth. Seedlings are really the best way to produce rooted plants. And then graft over them.
Now is not the best time to graft. But if you have a warm place and strong grow lights, you can attempt it.
Thanks for the insights. Much appreciated.
I have two seedlings from the much talked about International District loquat tree in Seattle, and they are quite vigorous. Such a gorgeous tree. Adds quite a flair to my garden.
Have you had the fruit from the International District tree? I’ve never had any and would like to know what kind of fruit I can expect.
I suppose I’ll just go ahead and try rooting this cutting that I have. Might not take but it’s better than not trying at all.
What’s your opinion about seedlings? Would it be better for me to graft some scions onto my seedling if I want superior fruit?
And if that’s the case, what cultivar would you recommend? Do you use some kind of frost protection and lights for heat with every tree?
It is very good for a seedling and nearly as good as named varieties.
It may be worth growing out seedlings as Kaz does but it will take years ( a decade maybe) to see fruit. It is likely that the fruit is very good from a good parent.
In the PNW, we need protection to get fruit. The flowers are destroyed below about 27F. I use a fleece blanket and Christmas lights. They work well until the tree gets large. Which is why I like to keep them small.
How does the International District tree yield ripe fruit? Does someone protect it once the cold weather sets in?
Too bad there isn’t a way to get the loquat fruit to ripen in fall before cold weather. If it wasn’t for autumn ripening of a few citrus cultivars I wouldn’t be able to get fruit from those up here.
I actually think the loquat is nice as an ornamental tree. I’d like to have fruit from it, of course, but it isn’t imperative.
I’d been under the impression that a larger loquat tree could more easily yield fruit unprotected than a smaller one. My thought process was that the larger tree would create a canopy beneath which the ground’s heat would protect the fruit from cold damage. I have no basis for believing this other than my own flights of fancy. So is that far off base?
That’s exactly right. You need the right microclimate. That tree has the perfect one overhanging a house/restaurant which is heated. The bullocks tree is similar and has the ideal microclimate. Without this, none of the Seattle or even PNW trees would consistently produce fruit.
To get fall fruit, you could try bronze loquat. It is supposed to be edible.
The tree in Chinatown is so large it creates its own microclimate, and it also basically leans on top of a 2-story concrete commercial building that may be venting hot air under the canopy from a kitchen or furnace.
A small tree is easier to protect. A large tree is less likely to need protection. There may be many years or even decades to grow from “easy to protect” size to “doesn’t need protection” size.
EDIT: Just saw @ramv’s reply while I was typing. What he said!
4-6 years on the average for my seedlings.
Agree, it’s one of the tree that will get you fruit early. It’s fairy fast compare to other trees from seed. If your weather is over 90 degree, then it will need protection for the 1st year in the ground.
I was reading about loquat bloom times and some literature I found listed bloom times as late as February. Do you know the name(s) of these latest blooming cultivars?
I found weather data for the Willamette Valley. A table listed the last freeze date in spring and the temp of that freeze. It dropped below 30 degrees for the last freeze exactly once between 1996 to 2022.
Here is the table:
Am I correct in assuming that a super late blooming loquat is the way to go? If it virtually never drops below 28 after January, the fruit would set in spring and ripen by mid summer in the significant heat we get in this area.
What are your thoughts?
All my varieties will bloom as late as March or later. Many start blooming around late summer. Almost all will have first blooms by early Fall. I have atleast 15 varieties blooming now.
Some even have small fruit by now! Latest variety that I grow is Kanko/Kando. Also one of the tastiest.
Yes, but i where can i find scionwood for that? I’ve been unsuccessful in finding it
How’s it going?
You seem like the best guy on the forum to ask about this newly discovered ‘crud’ that appeared suddenly on one of my two seedling loquats.
These are both grown from seeds sourced at the International District tree in Seattle.
As you can see in the pics, the tree on the left of my front entrance is completely fine, not a single imperfection at all on any of the leaves or branches.
The tree on the right is a different story. It has always been less vigorous than its sibling, and specifically it doesn’t want to grow tall.
Worse yet, over the last couple of days I noticed this funky black growth emerged on the leaves and hit the small newer growth really hard. The newer leaves look shriveled. The larger, mature leaves have this slimy black lesions
Any idea what this could be? And if so, what treatment would you recommend?
From everything I’ve read so far the worst case scenario is fire blight.
