[NAFEX] Toka plum
Richard Wagner
rewagner at centurytel.net
Sat Mar 13 17:24:42 EST 2010
I suspect that the name 'Bubblegum' was chosen because it was supposed to
taste somewhat like a cherry. Cherry is the flavoring used in bubblegum.
Black ice is reported to have been chosen as being descriptive, black on the
outside and white on the inside.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Melissa Kacalanos" <mijwiz at yahoo.com>
To: "North American Fruit Explorers" <nafex at lists.ibiblio.org>
Sent: Saturday, March 13, 2010 3:22 PM
Subject: Re: [NAFEX] Toka plum
> Ernest, I'm strongly suspecting that your "Toka" isn't a Toka at all, but
> a mislabeled cherry-plum, with that awful-tasting Western sandcherry in
> its ancestry. The nursery must have been wrong about either the "Toka" or
> the "Cherry Plum" part of the label (or both parts I suppose.) The fact
> that your tree is still alive in the cold, plus the fact that the plums
> taste bad, both point to the conclusion that it's a cherry-plum.
>
> Maybe I just don't want anyone bad-mouthing 'Toka' since I put a lot of
> thought into choosing this cultivar myself last year, and I'm hoping the
> fruit are good.
>
> I've been reading about some new cherry-plums that supposedly taste better
> than the old cultivars, after some more generations of breeding. Lydecker
> is a new cultivar that's hardy to zone 3b. In taste tests, fresh tree-ripe
> Lydecker plums were preferred to Asian plums that had been picked
> underripe in California, warehoused for a while, shipped across the
> country, warehoused some more, and then fed to taste-testers.
>
> Lydecker is being marketed under the name 'Blackice' which doesn't sound
> much better than 'Bubblegum' to me. Who thinks of these marketing names?
>
> There are so many interesting plums out there, I wish I had more room to
> grow them. I might have to learn how to graft a few more varieties onto
> the few trees I have.
>
>
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