Suzi, splitting is usually caused due to over watering. From what I have read. An established pomegranate tree should not be watered at all once the fruit start to approach full size. It varies from one variety to the next but it's usually from November until after harvest.

It starts with choosing a variety that does well in your area. I disagree with thisisme, I keep mine watered as needed throughout the season. Even moisture, never too wet or too dry, works well for me.

I should add that if you are just now taking them off the tree, they should be badly split. That's a long time to have poms holding on the tree.

I know they are split, but the fruit is NOT ripe!

They are on a drip system, and in well drained decomposed granite on a steep hillside.

The Wonderful cuttings from UC Davis are nice and green and bushy, but have never even blossomed. Maybe it takes a few years.

These are not getting red. They are splitting well prior to complete red. Do they need some nutrient?

Our town has so many poms! almost one in every yard. We did just move here, and this one got planted in June, so maybe it's growth cycle got interrupted.

Thanks!

Suzi

Suzi,
Not all poms develop a dark red aril color.
Splitting, in my limited experience growing 'em back home in AL, was due to late-summer/fall rains setting in. Uneven moisture levels, you know...

They should fruit fairly quickly from cuttings - but I had some, started from a neighbor's fruiting tree, that took 35 years to begin - but I'd planted them (as an 8yr old boy) fairly close to a sizeable black walnut tree, and suspect that it suppressed them, as they began fruiting prolifically once a new sewer line was trenched in between them and the BW, which declined and died shortly afterward.

You have Wonderful cuttings that are green and bushy? They should be brown sticks and twigs with no leaves right now. The rest of your pom trees should be dormant as well. Pom fruit left on dormant trees should not be very good at all -- they will either be mummies or split to heck on their way to becoming mummies.

I'm not a fan of drip watering or soaker hoses for trees, so I can't advise on that approach. I deep water my trees by feel/moisture meter reading and only as needed.

We tried the fruit in Oct/Nov, and it wasn't ripe. So, we let them split, still nothing ripe in there.

I think they are all confused. We have two days of 32 degrees low temp, and then 4 weeks of 70+. The smarty dormant figs are showing green buds. They are really confused, as are the wine grapes!

It's supposed to snow in a week, but who believes the weather?

I am a fan of drip systems. They water long and deep. We have managed our vineyards with drip forever! I just don't get this pomegranate thing.

Suzi

You might have a variety that just isn't very good or is too young. You are eating just the arils and not the rind, right? Even an under ripe pom should still taste sweet.

It's probably a variety that isn't any good. I can see me kicking it to the curb in favor of a good fig tree.

I got it from Gurney's Nursery online about 5 years ago. It probably is a bad variety.

But the Wonderful cuttings I have that are 4 years old, bear nothing.

Maybe I should just give up on poms.

Suzi