Paul Brewer was kind enough to welcome this blog to the ‘sphere. But he also made the following observation about Fruits and Votes:
So far, the votes seem to be winning over the fruits
Well, he is quite right. I had envisioned this blog (and actually still do) as a nexus between my fruit-growing interests here at Ladera Frutal, and my interests in constitutional design and elections. (They are not as unrelated as they might seem, but that is a topic for a future post, if you can take the suspense.) [UPDATE: The suspense is no more! See "The Mission of F&V" link beneath the blog's banner for an overview. Also the "I like hybrids" post that I linked below. More coming later, no doubt.]
Sure enough, events have focused my mind on the institutions (“votes”) side of things. No posts on fruits, unless one counts my post on lambic, which maybe one should.
So, here is the fruit post you have been waiting for.
Yesterday I harvested the season’s last pluot:
If you do not know what a pluot is, well, you are missing one of the real fruit sensations of our time. These are quite new hybrids by Floyd Zaiger, who is a modern-day Luther Burbank of fruit hybridization. And, yes, he does it the old fashioned way, as did Burbank; these are not gentically modified. This is painstaking controlled transfer of pollen from one variety’s flower to that of another, plant the seed, and see what you get. In fact, pluots are such complex hybrids that it takes generations of waiting for your seedlings to mature to fruiting age, and then repeating the cycle, in order to get the desired hybrid.
A pluot is roughly 3/4 plum and 1/4 apricot. There are now several crosses in the nursery trade, and some of them are having commercial success as well.
The fruit pictured above is a ‘Dapple Dandy.’ It was the last fruit on the tree, and you can see here the lengths I go to in order to protect fruit on the trees. Notice the netting around the fruit (keep birds and, less reliably, mice, away), and the silvery tape haning on the left side of the picture (scares birds, though it does best when it is windy so the thing twists and flashes).
And here is the beautiful 2.5-year-old tree from which that pluot came.
If you look closely at the base of the trunk, you will see yet another layer of defense—sheet metal. This makes it harder (nothing would ever make it impossible) for squirrels to climb the tree and steal the fruit. (Squirrels can easily rip right through that bird netting.)
This tree has four different varieties of pluot grafted on to it. Only two of them have fruited so far: The ‘Flavor King’ as well as the ‘Dapple Dandy.’
Both are incredibly richly flavored. These are fruits that, especially when tree-ripened, have the kind of complex layering of flavors that can be described by the kinds of phrases wine-tasters (or should I say, tasters of the finest ales, like lambics) use. In fact, the ‘Flavor King’ does almost taste like a wine!
Because the fruits are so complex and sweet, they can be harvested well before fully ripe and still be acceptable. In fact, eventually they may largely replace plums in the supermarkets for exactly that reason. But tree-ripened, they are in a league of their own.
Now, I wonder, when Paul wrote
…but the avocados have not yet begun to fight
did he know that Ladera Frutal includes a couple of acres of Hass avocados? Or was that just a lucky guess?
My level of fruit knowledge has just increased exponentially!!!!
Please do post more regarding your obsession with fruit.
Seed planted by Christian Johnson — 24 August 2005 @ 15:10
That’s a fine-looking pluot tree.
I’d like to take credit for a lucky guess, but I looked at the Ladera Frutal page before I wrote that. I saw avocados and grapefruits, and I went with avocados. Fighting grapefruits would be hard on the eyes and any open wounds, I would think.
Seed planted by Paul Brewer — 24 August 2005 @ 17:40
Blood oranges might be more appropriate for combat, I might think.
Seed planted by Matthew — 25 August 2005 @ 09:31
[...] I like driving our Honda Civic hybrid–at least if I have to drive at all; I’d rather be on the Coaster (which, pulled by a diesel-electric locomotive, is a hybrid of sorts, too). In fruit, I have already sopken of how much I love pluots–which are hybrids of plums and apricots that really do offer the best of both fruits. And just in recent days, one of my very favorite hybrids, the Allspice tangelo, has begun to ripen! Tangelos are crosses of grapefruits and mandarins (tangerines) and many really do offer the best of both parents, but none more so than Allspice. It is very aptly named, as it does have a sort of “spicy” character, with an incredible balance of flavors. [...]
Scion grafted by Fruits and Votes » Blog Archive » I like hybrids — 10 December 2005 @ 14:26
I am planting a Flavor King Pluot in our backyard. I know I need a pollinator, could I graft a Santa Rosa Plum to the tree or how would I do plant a pollinator in a very small space?
How wide does the Flavor King get, any suggestions on how to prune one to keep it small and yet good looking?
Sorry about all the questions, just want to do this right. All of your descriptions of the Pluot has my mouth watering. Any suggestions would be most welcome.
MichaelÆ’
Seed planted by Michael — 03 January 2006 @ 15:40
Happy to oblige. A couple of options here. There are multi-grafted trees with FK and other pluot or plum varieties on one tree, or you could plant two or up to four trees in one hole (trunks 18″ to 2′ apart). See my hedgerow for an example of densely planted trees–several in one row, rather than 2-4 in one hole, but trunks about 30″ apart.
On pruning, you can control size easily. Buy your pluots/plums on Citation rootstock and they will stay smaller. But you still need to size control. With pruning and Citation, under eight feet (height and spread) is very realistic. Unpruned, it would probably be 12-15′.
I will probably be posting some before-and-after photos of fruit-tree prunig in the near future, either here at F&V or at the main Ladera Frutal site.
On high-density planting more generally, see the excellent resources Bay Laurel Nursery has on the topic of “Backyard Orchard Culture.”
Oh, and, yes, you could graft Santa Rosa or other variety, but a graft on a very young tree may take longer to bloom and fruit than a companion tree planted at the same time.
I would recommend having three or four varieties of pluots or Japanese plums, because two varieties that bloom at the same time one year don’t always do so the next year. FK blooms rather late (at least here) while SR is sometimes earlier.
Seed planted by MShugart — 03 January 2006 @ 15:59