I’ve never harvested any Shiro green and table ripened them. I’m not saying that can’t work, but most Japanese plums don’t work too well doing that. Although that might be OK if you were planning to make Jam from them. You definitely want them on the firmer side if you’re making preserves from them. Shiro isn’t good for much other than juicing once it turns soft.
@tbg9b does Shiro normally turn soft before becoming entirely yellow? I have one that’s soft yet still greenish. In just about all plums I have, the softness comes in last after the color changes during the ripening sequence.
Generally on my tree from what I’ve seen, if it’s still green it shouldn’t be soft. At least that’s my impression, it usually doesn’t get soft till it’s pretty much fully yellow.
That’s a good point you make about timing. Unfortunately, to my palate, the brix isn’t high enough when the texture and flavor are best. I had those good conditions this year that you describe including a relatively light fruit set.
It may be my growing conditions. I had similar complaints about Beauty and this year I finally had one grown on a differet site that tasted a few brix higher than mine and totally changed my perception.
Although Beauty has a lot more flavor than Shiro. Shiro is more pleasant than “wow” to me. I quite like my juiced Shiro however.
Shiro is a pleasure to grow, no doubt. Great spreading growth habit along with the other attributes you cite. It’s also very easy to see when there are guests inside because they are semi-translucent.
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I imagine part of the reason my Shiro fruit quality has been so high is because I have given the tree a brutal knock down in size over the last few years. When I originally planted the tree 20 years ago I shaped it as an open center. Unfortunately family obligations prevented me from tending to the tree for many years. In that time the tree returned to being a central leader tree. After many years without pruning the tree had grown to 25 feet in height. Tons of fruit, but too difficult to harvest.
Over the last 3 years I have pruned the tree down from 25 feet to only 8 feet. I have reshaped it into an open center tree as the pruning promoted lots of lower growth.
This left the tree with a massive root system to nurture what is now a comparatively small tree with a fraction of its former crop. This is likely a big part of the reason the Shiro fruit quality and size has been so spectacular of late.
I compared my largest Shiro to a peach on the forum this year. The flavor was also reminiscent of a peach, it literally was that good.
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For me Shiro quality changes from year to year. Some years bland, some good. For sure not a top tier plum, but still a must have for it’s reliability. I’ve got rid of plenty of varieties because they were stingy crop setters or straight up freeloaders.
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If space is a concern, or even if it isn’t, planting a Shiro and grafting other asian plums, pluots and american hybrids to it is a winning strategy. It’s fairly vigorous, reliable and seems to take grafts well. I get a tiny bit of black knot but nowhere near as bad as other varieties so far.
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Last years largest Shiro:
This years largest Shiro:
Edit:
BTW, that’s a Canadian quarter, (same size as US quarter).
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Oh it is different. Thank you!
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Truly amazing! I found this pick by someone complaining of broken branches on SHIRO because they failed to thin fruit in the spring.
crazy fruit set. lol
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My Shiro would look like that in years I didn’t thin enough. It requires a ridiculous amount of thinning.
Re the conversation above about the quality of Shiro, I am liking it more for what it is… a mild and delicately flavored fruit. I like them best when the yellow darkens some, just not all the way to the strongest yellow, when they start to lose flavor.
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Would be awesome if there was an original Green Gage cross that was this productive, low chill & heat tolerant, which had long hang time without going over ripe.
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We don’t tend to have hot dry summers and in the humid regions the only hope for Shiro to be a high quality plum is drought and/or light soil. This is especially true for vigorous trees growing in good soil.
Shiro has earned its relative disdain in my part of the country. Here we have to go for the brix. This year we did get less rain than usual and are in a drought right now but it was wetter earlier in the season and for the first time my Shiros and those at other sites I manage got terrible bacterial spot. It must be temperature related because this problem didn’t occur in the previous years of wetter weather. Maybe the nights have been warmer.
Here, Shiro’s main virtue is dependable cropping, but on this great plum year here, Shiro vastly underperformed. On my site they are never a memorable plum except on the least vigorous trees in my nursery.
Here… shiro and other jplums…
Bloom (early march) set fruit… then get frosted… shrivel and die/drop.
It is rare for us to not have a killing frost mid to late March… occasionally as late as April 15.
I have grafted some later bloomers (beauty), hybrids (alderman superior) and an american plum vic red… will see how they do.
When I grew shiro in central Texas,it had a much better taste than when I grew it in north Houston.
I believe the clay soil,high humidity,and excessive rain are the problem in Houston area.
Stonefruit just prefers drier,sunnier,low clay soil,low humidity,enviroments.
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