I’m looking for a japanese plum or pluot specifically. I think I could go up to 3-4 weeks later than flavor grenade, in my climate, in most years. the only thing I see at retail is “flavor finale” and it’s only 2-3 weeks later
Keep in mind that order of fruiting (early, mid, late) of Prunus, Pomes, and other perennials varies by location and sometimes by year. For example, Dave Wilson charts are for Hickman CA. They are known to maintain order in Turlock CA but not in coastal influenced San Diego county.
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Do we know what the cause of the variation is? Sounds like I’ll have to just try likely candidates and see what happens ultimately.
Oh I found a clue! Anyone have Bob Randall’s most recent “Year Round Vegetables, Fruits and Flowers For Metro Houston”? I have the 12th edition from 2006 and it has ripening dates for many plums, but the problem is it’s missing some of the new ones. I’ll get a new edition next time I’m near one of the stores that carry it.
Here’s what I found:
May Ripening: Gulf Beauty, Gulf Blaze, Gulf Ruby, Gulf Gold, Randall (graftwood), Methley, Joe
June Ripening: Bavay’s Green Gage, Green Gage, Burgundy, Inca
July-Sept Ripening: Red Heart
Santa Rosa and Beauty are listed as pollinators, but their fruit time isn’t given.
For some reason Dapple Dandy, Flavor King, and Flavor Delight are listed as not recommended. I went to another section and it looks like it’s because no one has success due to low chill hours here. So maybe it’s a fluke of weather that people have had success lately. Then again there’s the person in Orlando with success, so maybe the trick with them isn’t traditional chill hours Looking for Florida low chill plum budwood. Anyone have more details about these hybrids?
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I had trouble with a 4x1 pluot tree, I finally removed the whole tree after 7-8 years, it’s a big tree too. I had a few Dapple Dandy and that’s it.
What else was on that tree?
This is what I ordered and planted.
Thanks for the info. You’re lower chill than me, but I’ll think twice about those varieties. Man I tried a bunch of exotic hybrids last year from the grocery store, but I didn’t note which were best. I really wish I did. I think flavor grenade was one and Dapple Dandy another.
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a lot of reordering is from chill hour effects. some areas have a sharp transition from cold to warm, some areas have more gradual warming or false springs that will wake some things up and not others, plus being more gradual could satisfy chill on some things (and get them blooming) out of sync with others that need a little more chill. I think a simple model is bloom time (starts the clock) + heat units (time until ripe) → harvest date, so if bloom time gets reordered then your harvest time will also be reordered
locally adapted recommendations like this are gold… I’d give them a lot of weight
Really sound advice.
Chill hours is not universal to a certain area, I’m in cooler area for some reason, I have varieties that listed 500 chill hours and I have fruit from them, Shiro is an example.
Are they hit or miss like the alleged low chill cherries?
Yeah. That’s what makes the book a little tricky to follow. It takes over an hour to get from one end of “Houston” to another. Whether you’re north or south or close to the coast or inland makes a difference. I’m wondering about one end of my yard vs the other too. I thought it was wind chill, but maybe it’s something else. I lost two citrus I didn’t expect to lose almost as though there was another freeze when I didn’t expect there to be one.
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