As far north as the IL/WI state line, at least
I’d like to grow a freestone pluot or plum w/o the sour skin so many of them have, ripening in July. I want to graft it onto my current Frankenplum that’s getting a major workover
Emerald Beaut seems to fit the bill, but someone advised against, for reasons I can’t recall
Recommendations, please?
I was eyeing Emerald Beaut too but I’ve read somewhere that this variety is good for zone 6-7 only. It may survives a few years if the winters were not severe but only a few bad polar vortex like in 2014 winter would prove its worth.
And I don’t like the heartache after spending times dreaming up its sweet fruits… 
Tom
Emerald Beaut ripens in August/Sept in my greenhouse. That’s Oct in your location.
Perhaps Geo Pride.
I know that Rob grows pluots (@warmwxrules). But I am not sure, which, if any are outside and which he has in pots.
He’s north of me by a significant degree
I can grow apriums here, most years, but subzero is the norm, not an exception
ltilton,
I currently have a 3-in-1 pluot, Flavor Queen-Flavor Supreme-Dapple Dandy, that I’ve planted since 2011. This year, it gave plenty of fruits (all 3 kinds) but I lost everyone of them to PC. With that said, I have no idea of the properly ripe time nor skin/flesh/texture/taste yet. But it surely survives the 2014 polar vortex!
Maybe you should consider these then?
Forgot to mention that I live in northern Illinois, about 1 hour drive to the Wisconsin border…
Tom
The Polar Vortex will live long in memory!
But did you get fruit set?
Most of my pluots are potted. I do have Flavor Supreme in the ground, but this will be the first test winter. Last winter was NOT a good winter to use because my low was only -12F and -20F is pretty much a given most winters if not colder. Having said that, my attached garage is unheated and everything seems to survive in there and judging by the car thermometer, its not much if any warmer in there on a cold winter morning. I think its just lack of wind/sun or something.
In my opinion i would imagine they are as hardy as a Japanese Plum…maybe -15F to -20F ish…of course results will vary. Once it gets cold here, it stays cold. We don’t see mid winter heat waves (40Fs are about the best to hope for in DJF).
Dapple Dandy is in stores now. I got some last week at the local supermarket under the Family Tree Farms brand. You can look up the variety by PLU on their website.
Dapple Dandy won’t be on my list of pluots to grow. All three were sufficiently meh to me. Not very sweet and not much going on.
Flavor Supreme is very early and clingstone. Maybe flavor grenade. It ripens later and the ones I’m eating are 90% freestone.
Even tree ripened they are very “eh”… I sent a few different pluots to my wife’s work last summer and i’m pretty sure everyone like the Splash, Geo pride the most! They didn’t say to much about Dapple Dandy…the upside of DD is that its SIMPLE to grow and they look nice and they seem to always size up really well even when heavy cropped (and this is on a container tree)…
I would grow Splash, FG, Geo Pride, FK and FS maybe Emerald drop…
There were only few fruits set that year but again, I lost everything to PC. Am still struggle to win this battle!
On my tree, not ripe yet in zone 5b/6a. Maybe another 3 weeks?
This is not a typical year. All my stone fruit is late this year.
Dapple is the most average pluot I’ve eaten that I know for sure by name. One that is really neat to me is Plumagranate due it’s super complex flavor of pomegranate and red wine but I think it may only be available to commercial growers. At least I’ve not seen it for sale.
I still have some on the tree. Have dried one big batch. They are very good this yr low to mid 20s brix.
Tom,
You may use Scott method of PC protection by the use of surround. That layer of clay will protect most of the fruits.
Tony
I’m thinking of going this way too, I have been using chemicals, and it’s working if I time it right.
Overall i had pretty good success with straight permethrin, but i’d like to change chemicals just to get the bugs guessing. In the end i still ended up with plenty of fruit out of the stuff i sprayed, in some cases i thought they would be thinned by PC much more and that never happened.
Same here! Using pyrethroids (lambda-cyhalothrin) and once in awhile malathion.
