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  • From: "William C. Garthright" <billg@inebraska.com>
  • To: NAFEX List <nafex@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: [NAFEX] Pluots in Nebraska
  • Date: Mon, 25 May 2009 08:45:49 -0500

I planted three pluots in the spring of 2007, and I thought I'd give my (very) preliminary results.

All three have grown very, very strongly. Too strongly, actually. They are on semi-dwarf (Citation) rootstock and, like everything else in my backyard, I've crowded them and tried to keep them small (much harder than I expected). Although they were developed in California, they don't seem to have a problem here in Nebraska, not so far.

Last spring - one year from planting - they all bloomed, but set on almost no fruit. I was told on this list that pluots tend to be shy fruit producers. But I also saw no bees around them last spring. I'm not sure why. At any rate, I think they set on three pluots between the three of them, and only one survived the squirrels long enough to get ripe.

This year, the second year from planting, one of the trees - the "Flavor Grenade" - started blooming April 4, just in time for a cold snap. The low temperature that night (the official low at the airport, so it might have been warmer in my yard) was 23 degrees F, but it didn't seem to hurt anything. The tree was a mass of blossoms, and it set on a ton of fruit (I've had to thin them heavily). Oddly enough, the other two trees didn't start blooming until 11 days later, and I was worried that this one wouldn't get pollinated. But the blossoms lasted for quite awhile, and I DID see lots of honey bees around them this year. (I've also got Japanese-American plums on the other side of the yard. Perhaps they can pollinate pluots? Does anyone know?)

The other two pluots - "Dapple Dandy" and "Flavor Supreme" - started blooming much later, as I said, on April 15. Unlike the Flavor Grenade, they didn't bloom very much, and they've set on almost no fruit - maybe a couple of pluots per tree. All three trees are close together, under identical conditions, and they're all about the same size. All of them look vigorous and healthy (they grew like weeds from the first day I planted them). I don't know why there was a difference in blooming and fruit this year, but then, I don't have enough experience with these trees to tell anything much, not yet.

Just thought someone here might be interested. When I decided to plant some pluots, I couldn't find anyone in Nebraska who knew anything about them. They didn't even know what a pluot *was* at the county extension office, and I certainly didn't know if they'd like our Great Plains climate. As I say, the Flavor Grenade tree is just a mass of fruit right now. If they're normally shy bearers, then something must have gone particularly well with it this year. We'll see what happens...

Bill
Lincoln, NE (zone 5)

--
More than any time in history, mankind faces a crossroads. One path leads to total despair and utter hopelessness. The other, to total extinction. Let us pray we have the wisdom to choose correctly. - Woody Allen





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