This is my first post on this forum, so please pardon me if I break any rules as a newbie.
I’m looking at planting additional one or two plum or plum hybrid varieties. I currently have burgundy plum and flavor grenade pluot.
I get about 400-500 chill hours in my zone 10a with sunset climate 21.
I also have a variety of apples, pears, peaches, nectarines, apricots, and a lot of citrus trees. But my family loves plums or plum hybrids the most.
My preference is for something that isn’t tart (wife requirement) and something that peak ripens between the burgundy and flavor grenade, or outside the burgundy and flavor grenade seasons.
I was initially thinking of getting candy heart pluerry but I haven’t found many reviews regarding the taste. Everything else seems to ripen at the same time as burgundy or flavor grenade.
Other folks here should be able to recommend better than me, but I’ve read that Methley is super easy to grow and should do well in your climate. Thanks
Of the plums that I grow, the European types are the least tart. Cambridge gage has a very slight acidity but it is overwhelmed by the melting syrupy sweet flesh. Mirabelle de Nancy & Parfum de September are also not tart with very sweet firm flesh.
They are all ripening today at my coastal location zone 9B. The Mirabelle plums bear heavily, the gages not so much.
Clockwise from top, 3 Bradley’s King of the Damsons, 3 Mirabelles, 1 Cambridge gage.
Dan, how many chill hours do you have? I thought that all European plums are high chill (700 hours or more).
I would suggest Howard Miracle, it is one of the best tasting Asian plums, and no tartness when fully ripe. The fruit ripen over two months (early July to early September in my location), so you have a few fruits per day almost every day for most of the summer. It’s 400 hours.
For pluots, I like the flavor of Emerald Drop (400 hours) and Flavor King (400 hours).
I’m not a big fan of Burgundy plum, the flavor is meh. I personally would graft a bunch of other plums on this tree, leaving one Burgundy branch since it is a good pollinator.
The data that I see on UC charts indicate 700 to 800 chill hours for my area. French 707, Early Italian, Coe’s Golden Drop, Bradley’s King, Purple Gage, Bravay’s Green Gage and various Mirabelles are all bearing quite well this year.
I picked up Howard’s miracle at the scion exchange in Feb. It is quite vigorous grafted to a random plum seedling rootstock, growing into a decent size bush already. Looking forward to fruit next year.
I suggest that you consider ‘Sierra’ which ripens for me a few weeks after ‘Santa Rosa’ and ‘Golden Nectar.’ which for me finishes a bit before when ‘Flavor Grenade’ starts.
I might be proven wrong since I don’t have a personal experience growing in a low chill area, but I suspect that Euro plums will likely be problematic with 400-500 chill hours as the topic starter gets. Would be an interesting experiment however.
A row of around 30 French improved prunes (Prunus Silicina) are planted in Cupertino and have fruited reliably the last year and now. I think the location only gets around 400 chill hours but the ripe fruits I tasted last year were very sweet and tasty.
You are right. It should have been French Improved (Prunus domestica). Wrong labelling on their part (this is in Apple campus) and bad awareness on mine. However, they are definitely prunes and likely French Improved, given the size, shape and harvest time. So, I guess it is possible to grow and fruit this European variety in a low chill area (~400 chill hours).
Are you sure it’s only 400 chill hours in Cupertino? Based on the weather data for the San Jose airport, they had 472 chill hours this winter, and Cupertino should get more than that since it’s further away from the bay and closer to the hills. Also, chill hours is a very crude estimate; Utah model and Dynamic model are more accurate and they show very respectable chill for the SJC area (see below). Based on that, I would not call Cupertino a low chill area. The Apple campus in Cupertino is where the Mariani family orchard was located historically, and they grew many types of stone fruit including prunes.
Below 45 Model: 472 chill hours
Between 45 and 32 Model: 472 chill hours
Utah Model: 901 chill units
Positive Utah Model: 1186 chill units
Dynamic Model: 61 chill portions
My data was from getchill.net which has been recently updated to use the weather station IDs only from MesoWest. Previously, I could inspect at a more granular level using station IDs from WunderMap. For Cupertino, the closest one is the KNUQ MountainView weather station, which gives the following results
Below 45 Model: 421 chill hours
Between 45 and 32 Model: 421 chill hours
Utah Model: 875 chill units
Positive Utah Model: 1141 chill units
Dynamic Model: 57 chill portions
This is quite similar to San Jose and from what I read in this forum, it is hard to fruit any >800 chill apricots here. I assumed the chill hours quoted in DWN website are based on the first row above (aka <= 45F). If its based on Utah or Positive Utah model, then I was wrong.
Apple campus is indeed where the Mariani family orchard was located and the current orchard is planted in reference to that, but the chill hours have reduced a lot since then (from what I hear from Andy himself). For e.g, it is quite rare to see any flowering cherry blooms during the cherry blossom festival in Cupertino these days. Of course, I meant “low chill” in a relative sense - significantly lower than the neighboring inland areas. Having said that, French Improved prune seems to do very well here still.
As for stone fruits, they have many varieties of Asian plums (Santa Rosa, Inca, Golden Nectar, etc), couple of the interspecifics, Lapins cherry and Blenheims. For European varieties, I can only recollect Green Gage and French Improved. Other than stone fruits, there are many rows of Apples (multiple varieties) and a couple of rows of Warren Pears. I know the apricots, cherries, few of the apples and plums fruited last year.
I have Candy Heart Pluerry and its very very very sweet!!! Sweeter than Flavor Grenade. It sets a lot of fruit for me and harvest is around same time as Flavor Grenade in zone 9B.
