North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

[Anton Callaway <marillen@earthlink.net>]

Lon,

I realize that flavor is very subjective, but care to take a whack at 
describing its taste?

Anton
Zone 8

-----Original Message-----
>From: "Lon J. Rombough" <lonrom@hevanet.com>
>Sent: Nov 25, 2007 11:12 PM
>To: North American Fruit Explorers <nafex@lists.ibiblio.org>
>Subject: Re: [NAFEX] Tasty Japanese hybrid plums for hot and humid areas?
>
>I have an old variety that I believe to be one of the old Burbank 
>hybrids.  I use the "name" 4285 for the address where I found it.  The 
>traits of the tree make it look like some sort of old Santa Rosa hybrid 
>with one or more American species.  The original tree was of an age 
>that suggest it came from the old Oregon Nursery Company.  It has a 
>growth habit suggestive of an American hybrid, but is much more 
>resistant than other American hybrids like Superior, Toka, etc. I've 
>tried here.  It has failed to crop only once in over 35 years.  Even in 
>years when Japanese plums were a total loss, it came through.  The only 
>other variety that has done as well is Shiro.   The trees of the two 
>are similar, though Shiro will get some brown rot when 4285 is clean.  
>The plums are reddish-blue with yellow-orange flesh.   Crops are not 
>heavy, but the trees I have are own rooted.  4285 might do better on 
>something like Pixy rootstock.
>-Lon Rombough
>Grapes, writing, consulting, my book, The Grape Grower, at 
>http://www.bunchgrapes.com  Winner of the Garden Writers Association 
>"Best Talent in Writing" award for 2003.
>For even more grape lessons, go to  http://www.grapeschool.com
>For all other things grape,   http://www.vitisearch.com
>
>On Nov 25, 2007, at 6:56 PM, Scott Smith wrote:
>
>To follow up on this question I had asked earlier, I checked out the
>"plum files" from the NAFEX library and found some good information.
>The Southern Plum group was active in the early 90's and several
>reports from that group were in the files.
>
>- One surprise is that the Sprite cherry-plum cross does well in hot
>and humid climates.  After my bad luck with pluots I did not even
>think about trying that one, but it gets quite a few kudos.  I think
>I will try it, but it may bloom too early for me.
>
>- I did not find any standout recommendations for the AU series plums
>or the new Georgia plums.  AU Producer was liked by some, but on the
>other hand it got the lowest rating in a taste test in a 1993
>article.  Rubysweet received the highest score in the taste test.
>That is the one new AU or Georgia plum I plan to try.
>
>- There were differing opinions on how disease-susceptible Methley
>is.  One person and one study found it bad but another study found it
>not so bad at all.  I may give good old Methley a try in the end,
>perhaps the samples I have tried were not grown or harvested properly.
>
>- Not many of the southern growers tested the northern hardy plums.
>Since they are also native hybrids with more disease resistance I
>would think they were worthy of trial.  I did find one good report of
>Purple Heart from a grower in Mississippi.  I am trialing several
>northern hardy plums right now, and am going to add a few more of them.
>
>- There were many confirmations of how poorly the pure saliciana
>(Japanese) plums do in the south due to diseases.
>
>Scott
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