I was at a rental property today and got quite a haul. All of this, other than the figs and the 2-3 Li (box on the bottom left) came from just 2 trees- a Honey Jar from Bay Laurel and a So from Englands, both planted in 2019.
Several of the varieties were grafted this year:
Sugar Cane- these are crisp and have high brix, but still have a bit of an off taste that I mentioned in another thread. Either this season affected all the Sugar Cane in my area (covering sites in at least 3 towns) or my tastes have changed post-covid. I’ve seen others report this off-taste with Sugar Cane (for years now, not covid related), but I never noticed it before. This time the brix is very high, so it isn’t simply a matter of low brix fruit not masking a flavor which has always been there.
Bok Jo- Produced a lot (about a pint today, with more on it), but I don’t like them as much as the Bok Jo from more mature trees. It isn’t even that they don’t get enough brix, as I measured these at 32-33. I think the texture is a bit less crisp and the size is obviously much smaller.
For comparison, here’s a very good Bok Jo from my yard (wtih a couple Xu Zhou):
The Xu Zhou wasn’t as good as the Bok Jo, but was better than Xu Zhou has been in the past.
Bu Lu Shu- I grafted it this spring with wood from @scottfsmith. This graft didn’t grow very large like some of the others, but did grow a foot or two and produced a single fruit. Decently crisp texture and mild sweet flavor. Enough to give it some hope for the future
Fucuimi- There were only a few left today, but I picked some on Tuesday night on my way to a softball game (and took this pic). Pretty good and a brix close to 30, with decent crispness. I look forward to how these will do with another year under their belt. The parent tree still hasn’t made a single fruit.
Sihong- Still not ready, but they are sizing up pretty well for fruit that set so late in the year. The 10 day forecast has a lot of rainy days, but no frost, so maybe they will get a chance to ripen.
The main varieties on those 2 trees (not grafted this year like the 5 varieties listed above:
Honey Jar- a few of the Honey Jar are larger (I think they may have set a bit earlier in the season), but many are quite small. Still tasty as they are crisp and up to 32 brix (26-32 was the range from 3-4 that I sampled).
Pretty productive on some branches (over 1 quart today and there is more on the tree). It wasn’t evenly distributed though, as some branches had almost none.
These So are excellent and I liked them as much or more than the Honey Jars. Brix at 32, lots of crunch (denser texture than HJ), but still plenty juicy. It also has a bit of acid bite to it.
The Li were OK. Decent brix (about 25) and the texure was OK, Nothing that impressive and a big tree producing 2-3 fruit (vs ~2.5 quarts of fruit from the 2 other trees).