Santa Rosa plum- alot of nursery descriptions say it has yellow flesh… but many pics of it having red flesh from growers…
Santa Rosa-
Weeping Santa Ros
curious to see what CHAT comes up with as there are reports of both red and yellow flesh all over the internet.
I am certain that all y’all are in bed with “big fruit”, conspiring against a simpleton like me and causing many more trees in my shopping cart than initially intended.
I used to see Hollywood advertised in fruit tree catalogues, probably Starks, Millers or Gurney’s, so it stands to reason that nurserymen all over the country distributed the variety for a long time. Every one of these redleaf varieties may be its offspring if it was the first, as it seems to be… but then any Newport or other redleaf ornamental plum may have produced a seedling with improved fruit.
Ok i went all the way down the rabbit hole… which i enjoy sometimes. There are at least two… Hollywood plums that i think folks are growing now. Hollywood and ‘fake Hollywood’/Spencer?
1)The round one- Sold by most nurseries.
2)The oval (egg shaped) one- Sold by Raintree and maybe others.
Im not sure if a pic of ‘Spencer Hollywood’ exists… but there are for sure pics and videos of round Hollywood plums… and oval egg shaped ones.
Arthur Lee Jacobson wrote a (the) book on these plums…
Authentic Hollywood plums are ‘round’.
In this forum there are round and oval Hollywood plum growers.
However im not sure there is anyone that grows them both and can compare.
Not saying that the oval ‘egg shaped’ one is ‘Spencer’… but according to the expert its not “Authentic Hollywood”.
Also while going down the hole… Hollywood on many nursery sites only need 300 or so chill hours… but it is also Z4 hardy. I found one grower growing them in Montana… so its a very diverse plum.
Also many nurseries say its self fertile… others say it needs a pollinator. Some nurseries say its a Euro/Japanese hybrid… and some say Stanley is a great pollinator and on and on and on with various sources listing various pollinators from Japanese to Euro.
I have no idea how CHAT could come up with an honest answer on any of this… as there are way too many ‘facts’ to interpret…
I did my best as a human.
People are in love with their own anecdotes and often believe that the way their fruit trees behave in their orchards is universal. A description is most useful if it is at least based on how a tree performs in your own climate- this seems to be especially true of flesh color with J. plums. However, if a grower picks fruit sooner than later, that will also be a significant modifier. Other factors are as varied as every influencer on how a tree grows- soil, irrigation, competition from other trees, etc. Even anecdotal descriptions will be a lot more accurate if based on several seasons. The conventional wisdom is it takes 10 years to evaluate a variety but we are most likely to rave about varieties during infatuation and not during mature love. Infatuation is so exciting.
Origin & Introduction
Botanical Type
Tree Characteristics
Tree Foliage
Fruit Description
Cultural Notes from Early Literature
Here is the CHAT list after I beat back the false info I could identify. If CHAT is correct I may have the wrong Laroda. As mentioned, flesh color varies and I’m in a sweet spot for getting darkest flesh climate-wise. Feel free to pitch in with corrections based on experience. I don’t have experience with all these varieties.
C. Consolidated, Accurate List of True Blood Types (Plums + Pluots)At min it left off au rubrum. I was looking at that one
C. Consolidated, Accurate List of True Blood Types (Plums + Pluots)Not sure how cream colored flesh makes it ‘True Blood’
is a Yellow Flesh plum.
your CHAT needs a tuneup.
I triedd with chat and it was awful with finding me red fleshed peaches lol.i dont think its good enough at this type of search. I tried plums too but found the same issue. I think too much cross referencing required
There is not accurate source for this kind of information. As I said, I had to edit a lot more than that to get what CHAT gave me, but I haven’t grown the varieties you are talking about. That is why I asked for other people to help correct the list, but I think the list is a useful starting point.
Chat humbly apologizes and admits its mistakes (with an excuse). Here is its revised list.
Laroda is yellow flesh according to Burchell and Univ of Calif.
As noted above from my snippet above Santa Rosa is red fleshed according to Auburn Univ. According to U of California its amber fleshed… but weeping Santa Rosa is purple fleshed.
I have no idea how CHAT wades through all the inconsistencies of scholars and nursery listings.
CHAT stands by the red flesh claim for Laroda-
Doesn’t UC Davis list Laroda as amber fleshed
Short answer: Yes — UC Davis does list Laroda as having amber flesh.
And that has created 20+ years of confusion, because true Laroda is not amber-fleshed.
Let me explain exactly what’s going on, because this is one of the messier identity problems in Japanese plums.
1. UC Davis lists Laroda as:Skin: dark purple
Flesh: amber
This is straight from the USDA/UC Davis GRIN / NCGR accession (Davis germplasm collection).
That description is accurate for the accession they hold, but not for the Laroda that was originally in California commerce.
What they have is almost certainly:
A mis-propagated, mis-labeled “Laroda”— a common problem in old Japanese plum collections.
This happens because Laroda was distributed widely in the 1940s–1960s, often via state test stations, and several yellow/amber-fleshed seedlings were circulated under or near that name.
2. TRUE Laroda (commercial CA type) has red → burgundy fleshThe real Laroda, as sold by:
…is red-fleshed.
Not as dark as Satsuma or Elephant Heart, but fully red to burgundy, especially near pit and in northern climates.
That has been my experience with Red Heart. Absolutely no disease issues, but rarely has it produced a decent crop in the past. Last year I grafted other Japanese plums and plumcot onto my Red heart tree. With the newly grafted pollenizers, this summer it produced more than in the past, but the crop was still very sparse considering the trees size and age.
I was actually considering lopping the entire top of this Redheart last year because of several reasons. When this Redhart actually produces, the fruit flavour is truly unimpressive compared to most other Japaneses varieties. In addition, the size of the Redheart plums are quite small compared to the other far better plums I grow.
The Burbank plum, Beauty plum, and Northern Sunset plumcot grafts I made to my Redheart produced quite well this summer considering their relative immaturity. These newly grafted varieties grown on the Redheart tree were huge in comparison to Redheart and definitely superior in flavour as well. These newly grafted branches also produced more fruit than the entire Redheart upper framework combined.
Considering all these factors I think I will be grafting over almost the entirety of my Redheart tree to larger and better varieties of plums/plumcots…
If you are growing J. plums where black knot is a problem, I strongly suggest starting with a Spring Satin aprium and graft your black knot susceptible varieties to it. You will likely never need to cut out black knot from the large wood or cut down the tree because BK gets away from you. If a branch does you can remove it and graft it back onto the tree, enjoying the fruit again by the grafts second season. As you learned, once a tree is established and growing vigorously, well lit grafts attached to vigorous uprights establish quickly- just be sure to pull them down to near horizontal before they become too stiff to bend… otherwise you will have to use the hinge method to bend them.
If you are like me, you will end up choosing Spring Satin as one of your essential varieties. It is the highest quality early season “plum” I grow. However, it tends to be a bit shy crop-wise. If you don’t have much space that could be a problem… I’m trying to figure out how to get it to crop more heavily… I suspect its high (juvenile) vigor may be an issue. I would spring and summr prune it more aggressively, but I need the graft wood.
I found that UC Davis and Okie both mention the parentage of Laroda as Santa Rosa and Gaviota.
https://fps.ucdavis.edu/treedetails.cfm?v=885
Neither is red fleshed or true blood… with Gaviota being yellow flesh for sure… and Santa Rosa having red flesh for some but not many others.
The most accurate description that i have read is-
Laroda is a dark purple skinned plum with juicy, richly-flavored red and amber flesh.
Anything is possible i think… but i think the possibility of DWN along with all other nurseries like Burchell carrying ‘fake Laroda’ is less possible.
It would be nicer if CHAT provided sources of their information going forward. I dont see how it searches the internet that I cant see.
I dont see how Marta has never come across one either.
For now to me its case closed… either we go with ‘fake Laroda’ or hunt for ‘True Laroda’ that CHAT says exists.
I say put it on Ed Laivos desk and get the real answer.
All you have to do is ask for the sources and CHAT provides. Then you can check the sources. It does seem to occasionally manufacture false sources. Nevertheless, most of the info it dispenses is factual and it has helped me acquire a deeper understanding of every single subject I use it to investigate. It concisely organizes information it a way that allows my brain to wrap around it better than any text book on my shelf.
That doesn’t mean I have faith that this tool will help achieve a better existence for my species… but that outcome won’t be determined by the robots. That may actually be the problem.
Thanks to you, I got a seemingly accurate answer from CHAT. It is only as good as the questions it is asked and it often represents sketchy information as established fact. Still, it is a very useful tool- but not in this case.
So how can I be certain that the historical record you suggest is correct. And Is there not a single living person with a red fleshed Laroda offering scion wood.
Thought for 31s
Yeah, this is exactly the kind of thing where you should be suspicious of me and everybody else until we actually look at primary sources.
Short version:
Once you go back to the original release description and multiple California nursery sources, the weight of evidence says:
So my earlier “true red-fleshed Laroda vs mis-labeled Davis accession” story was too confident. That one’s on me.
Mia Culpa… I was the source of the misinfo CHAT spat out. I wrote this in 2017 and have never been so impressed with Laroda since. My description may have been careless but I never suggested the flesh was solid red only that it ran from that to amber. I meant within a single plum and not as a range of the overall crop. But my words did not make that clear.
Today’s gift was a few Larodas from a graft. I wasn’t expecting anything much beyond being like Santa Rosa but it is better to my palate- as good as any plum I grow. Solid purple on the outside- one plum was quite large but all were just as sweet with just the right touch of tartness along with a nice meatyness. What was most amazing of all was the beauty of the flesh which runs from deep red to golden amber. They are sweeter than any Santa Rosa I’ve harvested here and the flesh is more beautiful than any plum I’ve ever seen.
After years of testing it, Laroda isn’t even a top 10 plum for me… but that won’t stop me from over-hyping my next fruit infatuation. At least I’ve been growing Ruby Queen for a pretty long time, so maybe it is true love. Same with Spring Satin. However, I suggest never relying too much on the testimony of a single grower… even if the evaluation is based on a long relationship.
Next on the docket if you wish is Santa Rosa.
I have ‘proof’ that it is and isnt a red fleshed plum. One proof is from the CRFG which CHAT used as a source… members have red fleshed SR… for sure. Okie also listed SR as red flesh… yet most all nursery decriptions will say yellow… amber flesh.
Futher on… there may be a TRUE Santa Rosa and a ‘fake’ Santa Rosa.
Most say that SR is not worth growing for us in the East… but i am interested in the sports myself Weeping and Late/Improved (Casselman).
The reports of SR are all over the place on here as well as social medias… its either fantastic or terrible etc. Most all points lean towards ripening time and the longer hang time seems to give more red flesh as well as better reports… that is all up for debate however.
History says that SR is red fleshed (even Satsuma like). Yet offerings and discussions are mostly the opposite.
