I just received Tanaka budwood this year and will graft to seedlings soon. I have many other varieties I just recently received that are rare in the US.
So far my Argelino has grown a lot but no flowers.
Kanko has lots of flowers and even small fruits forming. Many large local trees are full of flowers and fruit now.
Are you sure about this? I’ve heard loquat flowers cannot take temperatures below about 27F.
The plant survived 0.4 but it starts to flower in the spring when the temperatures are much higher so it can fruit even in temperate zones. I have seen the fruit pictures Alan is talking about, I think it ripened around June if I am not mistaken.
I haven’t had temperatures that low, the lowest was about 5F when my Tanaka was 1 year old, it survived with minor leaf burn (about 1/3 damaged). Mature plants can handle probably much lower temps.
I just fixed my poor grammar/added some detail, sorry for the misunderstanding.
Different varieties of loquat have different levels of cold hardiness, and yes younger plants are more sensitive to cold, Supposedly ‘Rose Anne’ can survive zone 4 at it’s best, a lot of varieties supposedly can survive zone 5 at their best, some can be killed by a zone 7 winter.
Yes June, I just fixed my poor grammar above.
Zone 5 or zone 4 for a loquat is amazing. I have seen them take 10F with some minimal damage.
What really hurts them is snow! The huge evergreen leaves can’t shed snow. I’ve seen large tree limbs get overloaded and broken by snowstorms.
Hi, Alan,
May I join the waiting list too? 
I am in Northern VA, zone 7A. I have been searching for the loquat trees that can “fruit” here “in ground” not “in garage”, but haven’t been successful. One of my friends grew White Vista and Gold Nugget. They were very tall and strong, surviving Zone 7A without any problem, but all flowers would fail during the winter. No fruits for 10 years. He just removed them. Very sad.
I was thinking to buy an early bloom loquat such as Christmas and hoping to find a way to trick it to bloom and finish fruiting before Dec. But it would be a very challenging task.
I also saw a nursery in Vancouver who claimed that some varieties can fruit there. But by looking at their video below, I believe they still need to do a hell lot of winter protection.
I knew the right solution was to find the loquats that bloom in Spring. I knew they existed, but could not find any. Now my hope is returned with your information.
Yes.
Edit:
By the way they are rated to be zone 8a in that part of British Colombia. They may be even 8b or warmer some years.
Thank you so much!
Agreed. Vancouver has milder climate. It’s not just the temperature, but overall environment. I went there twice and noticed the plants were more diverse than east coast.
Bob Duncan is in zone 9A.
We get fruit regularly from trees here in Seattle Zone 8B
Hello All,
I’m Carolina Seedman and I am new to the forum. I’m doing some zone pushing in NC. I would appreciate any help with getting some of those super late varieties or super early varieties. I am looking for Tanaka and Novak and Rose Ann.
This is a link to a place in Britain that has them. I would be willing to go to Canada bit Britain is too far.
Keep posting and participating and the trading forum will open up to you.
Hi, Alan,
I plan to grow a loquat now in ground so that it will be ready to receive your scions in 2021 or 2022. Should I simply plant a root stock, or get a named variety? I know White Vista and Gold Nugget can grow really well and survive the winters here.
Advance is a natural dwarf which makes it desireable for me. Quince is often used in Europe to create a dwarf loquat. But computability can be an issue. I saw an article with a 50% take rate on Quince -A and 0 for Quince- BA29,
I bought some quince rootstock last year to grow out for grafting before Advance appeared become available again.
I’ve done several dozen grafts on quince BA29c and they’ve all taken perfectly.
I know of 10+ year old trees near me grafted on quince BA29C and thriving.
I germinated seeds from Gold Nugget for now, to guarantee compatibility, yet I intend on getting some ‘Limon’ quince trees from ‘Raintree’ for actually planting in the ground, that is a variety with very high disease resistance, and it’s very cold hardy, quince not only dwarfs loquat trees, it also may make the loquat fruit bigger, and might be less sensitive to salty water and salty soil than loquat plants are.
Oh and I might not be getting all the varieties in 2021 or 2022, since not all my seedlings are looking healthy right now. Who knows, they might surprise me and look healthy all of a sudden. I will be getting at least two varieties one of those years though.
Thanks, Alan!
I will get a Gold Nugget then.
I looked online and found only a couple of places having them in stock. Seems out of stock from many places.
https://www.willisorchards.com/product/gold-nugget-loquat-tree
https://toptropicals.com/cgi-bin/garden_catalog/cat.cgi?uid=Eriobotrya_japonica
I am thinking to get the 1 yr tree from Willis Orchard since there is still plenty of time to grow it.
You are welcome. Here are some more options,
Awesome! Thanks!
2021 and I do not recall Loquat ‘Advance’ ever materializing at OGW.
I stumbled on Adam Karsten’s AKME Gardends retail page and ordered a ‘Advance’ scion. I spoke with him on Facebook before and I think a few forum members know or have ordered from him before. I now have enough material to try to graft to my Quince BA rootstock and to attempt to root.
Adam has a Dwarf #8 and a semi-dwarf #7 also but out of stock.
