I had thought about that…just because it “seems” we haven’t had many chill hours doesn’t make that the case, and as you pointed out, many pluots have very low requirements that probably have been met. But I still would have thought that it at least took longer than usual to meet them, not faster than usual as the early blooms would suggest. And almost all my trees are ahead of schedule, including those with much longer chill hour requirements. That is why it seems like it is the warm weather triggering the end of dormancy and not the accumulation of chill hours. But as you say, my casual observations of what it “seems” like has happened this year is far from empirical evidence and therefore isn’t much of a scientific rebuttal to the chill hour concept.
BTW…to answer your question about which pluot that is, its a very long story, but evidence suggests its called Dragon Tear and is one that wasn’t supposed to be sold except to licensed commercial growers. Here is the story: