Nadia Sweet cherry x plum hybrid

[murky]

My Nadia makes hassle free pristine fruit with no spray. It has a good robust growth habit, I pretty much just prune out the center and shorten some branches to keep things in reach and from drooping too much under heavy fruit load.

I don’t have many pictures of cut fruit, because unlike my other fruits, I trust it not to have surprises inside if the skin is unblemished. So I eat them out of hand uncut. I eat 60% of the flesh in a few bites, then bite out the pit and spit it on the ground, then pop the remaining 40% in my mouth.

This year I started picking them the last week of July. Then they are not fully black, they are firm but still juicy with a beautiful bright red interior. At that stage I can put 20lbs together in a bag and they are firm enough to withstand the jostling and still be as pristine as grocery store fruit. My coworkers love them and ask for more.

At that stage the flavor isn’t fully developed, but the texture is great and they are quite palatable.

Here it is at July 26 when the began that roughly 2 weeks I’m talking about. Before that there were a few fruit that were nice to eat, but most were a little too firm and underripe.

About a week after that they are quite similar, but I notice when I used my same process of picking 20 lbs in 10 minutes and putting them into 1 or 2 bags, later there were a few that were leaking in the bag. Perhaps they were bruised or had a surprise inside, maybe I was picking faster and not heeding because previous times didn’t need it. After that I started touching the stem end to make sure it was firm before putting in the bucket. Usually the stem stays behind on the tree.
Here are a couple next to an under ripe Hollywood:

Notice the areas with and without the bloom intact. It looks quite different if polished.

Fast forward to now and they are getting softer. The flesh inside is more purple than that bright red from 2 weeks ago. I like them better like this but not as easy to handle.

I’ve given away over 100 lbs of these and there were over 150 lbs of excellent quality fruit this year with absolute minimal care.

The tree was maybe 12 feet tall, but set and held so much frut that the branches arched over to about 1 to 5 feet above the ground. It put all of the fruit into a region that could be picked from the ground (I’m 6’1") . The deer eat some of the leaves but don’t eat fruit from the tree.

I gave no supports and none of the branches broke. I did do some thinning a few times of the ones that were within reach. I tried to remove fruit that would touch each other as they grew.

[mamuang]

I grafted Nadia to a Euro plum tree. There are two branches of Nadia. Large purple fruit with dark red interior.

Wgen I picked them firm. They are too tart for my liking. I like more sweetness in plums. But birds like them and pecked over two dozen already.

[murky]

Yeah, they get better when they are riper, more balanced. They are quite good, not great, but well worth it overall for sharing.

I like my AU Producer plums better to eat, but only for 1 week. When they get more ripe the texture is bad and flavor suffers. They are also a lot smaller so its much more work to pick and they don’t keep as well.

If I had to sell fruit, Nadia is great. Although would probably be better if they were easier to keep the stem on.

[mamuang]

My Nadia. I can taste tartness in it. More ripe, less tart.

[murky]

That looks like Nadia, and less ripe than mine was 2 weeks ago. I eat a few like that just testing, but not good yet.

[murky]

Today, the flesh doesn’t seem as dark in the photo as I remembered:

[mamuang]

I hope I will have some left to fully ripened. I nettd the area but squirrels have stolen some, too. Squirrels don’t like peanut butter as much as my fruit, unfortunately.

[murky]

The few remaining are getting real juicy but still firm enough for me. My brother, sister, and nephew came by today and got some:

[mamuang]

Nadia is clingstone, right?

[murky]

Yes, completely.

[warmwxrules]

Any idea if these are commercially grown in the US? I’d imagine they would sell well.

[murky]

I don’t know if it is genes or handling that allow plums to last long enough in the channel to be useful. I don’t pick Nadia until they taste good, and I don’t store them for any length of time before eating them.

When they are ripe, the stem usually stays on the tree which leaves a wet scar. I imagine they’d keep better if the stem were cut or picked with the fruit assuming they are packed in a way that the stems are gouging surrounding fruit.

[LarWes]

Nadia has been around for some time now and people start to know it better. Can I hear your opinion about whether it is a true hybrid. Is it really 50% Prunus avium, or is it just a very cherry-like diploid asian plum, or a hybrid with cherryplum, the myrobalan ? Looking at all your photos I fail to see any Prunus avium influence at all. Why is it not marketed in Australia, its birthplace ? Thanks for any input

[itheweatherman]

Only the older leaves resemble like that of a cherry.

. Most of these plum hybrids end up resembling the plum parent. For example, a couple years ago, on DWN nursery forums, one of the members created a 50/50 peach x plum hybrid. The fruit and the pit looked 100% plum. The only trait that separated it from a standard plum was its peach-like leaves.

[nil]

Nadia is an attractive tree if you can grow it without disease.

[evilpaul]

It’s got noticeably denser foliage than any other plum type tree I’m growing.