Very nice! Pluots are my favorite. Are we supposed to hand pollinate all pluots? How about apriums?

Sandra

Cool! Yeah I have to grow this, well I am, I can't wait to try one from my own tree, even if brix is not all that good.
Maybe next year.

Congrats on the top of the line fruit. A good size harvest too, awesome! You know you can make them last so season length doesn't really matter. As even frozen or cooked, I'm sure they are awesome. I can't wait to do this with peaches, one day maybe...
I have no complaints as raspberry season started here yesterday and will go to November, not a bad deal. And blueberries can be harvested here for 3 or 4 months. Most of mine are in the 2 month range in the middle. One day I will add cultivars to take advantage of the long season. Tomatoes are the same too. Started harvesting 2 weeks ago, got till November. It never becomes too hot here, so it never stops.

Sandra:

Flavor Supreme is the only fruit I hand pollinate using a small artist brush. Most of the time bees aren't attracted to the flowers. I have had a good set when I intertwined branches and had honeybees in abundance. Bumblebees in my greenhouse have too much stuff that is way more attractive.

FS also sets a lot of doubles so I thin those off first. When pollinated it sets a big crop. I thinned off 75% of this yrs set. I just go in a circle collecting pollen from plums and other pluot to pollinate FS.

Drew:

I think you'll like FS. I hope you get a crop soon.

Here's a little better picture of the fruit in this mornings sunshine. It's really not that ugly and my picture doesn't do it justice.

{{gwi:118201}}

I guess I need to get going on the hand pollinating thing. I have only one FS on my tree this year. The flavor is indeed Supreme, for once one of those hyperbolic names actually fits!

Fruitnut my first Robadas are starting to ripen. A not quite ripe one showed promise. Unfortunately they are getting some skin disorder. We had one week of very hot and humid weather which was not friendly to them. My Nicoles are having a similar problem.. California cots are so sensitive!

Scott

I think the appearance is a bonus. The birds seem to ignore my FS. Maybe they think they look unripe?

Scott:

I'm glad you agree about the eating quality of FS! I may be the only one that's ruined them, at times, but it's nice to know they can be good in two places as different as ours.

Robada is tart and astringent until soft ripe. I hope you can ripen some this year.

An hrs work over two weeks is about what it took on mine to set too many. They are worth the effort.

Steve:

Tell us more about how you are managing to produce yours. Aren't you in the mountains of CO? Anyone succeeding there is worth listening to!

This post was edited by fruitnut on Mon, Jun 23, 14 at 11:17

No not CO, I live in the foothills about 100 mi north of Sacramento. The soil is great here and it's really easy to grow fruit trees, I just dig a hole, plant tree, mulch, water occasionally and prune a couple times a year. Other than dormant spay and tanglefoot on the trunks, I don't really do anything else.

This post was edited by Steve357 on Mon, Jun 23, 14 at 11:49

Steve:

Nice area. I lived in the foothills east of Fresno in 2000-4. Left because of air quality issues and bronchitis. Wish I had checked out your area more before moving here. I have been to Oroville/Chico/Los Molinos several times and love the area.

Please post more about your results!!

I live 10 miles from Chico, It is a nice area but very prone to wildfires in the summers.
My Flavor Supreme has been in the ground for 4 1/2 years. I keep it pruned to about 6 1/2- 7'. Last year was the first time I hand pollinated it ,per your advice. I had to thin it like crazy and ended up with 30 fruit, This year with the help of perfect weather during bloom and hand pollinating, It had an incredible fruit set. I thinned hundreds of tiny fruits off it and ended up with 50 fruit this year which was about the amount I was shooting for. I ate the last one a couple days ago, but here is a picture from 2 weeks ago.

This post was edited by Steve357 on Mon, Jun 23, 14 at 13:44

My Flavor Supreme set a large amount of fruits on my 4 in 1 trees. PC did a number on them though..Should still get some. I'll have to bud some FS over to other trees. I need (want) earlier ripening pluots. FK was late Sept last year!

Frank:

FS is by far the best early pluot. Nothing else comes close. It does seem like the perfect fit for your area. It should ripen during the hottest weather. That's a plus for eating quality in WI.

So you got good set with honeybees and close by pollinators? I have at times also, just not in my greenhouse. Scott's troubles could be the weather and not lack of bee activity.

Fruitnut, just shoot the fruit on a plain white plate. The background colors of the plate takes away from the beauty of the fruit. They look fabulous and I would love a bite! Mrs. G

FN,

I agreed with you that FS is an awesome early pluot. I definately pollinate it with other plouts next spring for better fruits set.

Tony

I think the shot is excellent. I can tell a good photo, and that is superb! I often try to make good photos but fall short. The design of the plate, and placement of the fruit is perfect. The fruit sets off the design, the design sets off the fruit, perfect! It looks good too. I love that color.
What really makes the shot too is the side lighting. Often I fail short at good lighting. I forget about lighting. You sir are an excellent photographer! The lighting adds depth, and has a design pattern itself, really that is a top rate photo!

Thanks for the photo comments and suggestions. If it's good it's nothing but luck. In all or most of my fruit photos the colors aren't as vivid on the screen as in person. Don't have any idea why but it seems that way.

At any rate the fruits better than the photo. I've been eating FS for nearly a month and they've been consistently great and good size due to heavy thinning. But I have learned one thing about thinning this yr that I didn't know, too much thinning can lead to shattered pits. Since I've done too much and too little I've got a bead on the sweet spot.

I noticed shattered pits on a few of my FS's. A couple of the pieces had flesh grown over them, so it was like it had 2 pits. I thought I was alone, you think it's from over thinning?

This post was edited by Steve357 on Mon, Jun 23, 14 at 17:12

Steve:

Yes I think my shattered pits in both Arctic Star nectarine and Flavor Supreme pluot this year were from too much thinning too early. Too much of a good thing. So I'm bumping up my crop load next yr. Not too high because I've done that as well. Somewhere in the middle so the fruit doesn't grow fast enough to rip the pit apart but still get high brix.

Beautiful Tree fruitnut, do you have a picture of the whole tree? how old is it?

cyh:

Sorry no pic of tree. Guess I have five right now, one I just bought to get clean scion wood and two just budded onto K1 rootstock. The older trees are 5-7 yrs old and soon to be cut down in favor of the younger trees.

Here is a picture of my Flavor Supreme. I took this yesterday, the fruit is all gone and it just got pruned back to 6 1/2' tall. I keep it under 8', It's been in the ground 4 1/2 years.

This post was edited by Steve357 on Tue, Jun 24, 14 at 10:51

Steve 357,

I see you caged up all of your fruit trees. Do you have rabbit or deer problem?

Tony

No rabbits, But deer do jump my back fence a couple times a year and do some serious damage. I have two yellow labs that do a good job keeping the deer away, but a couple time a year my boys are asleep on the job and the deer snack on my trees. The cages are more to protect my young trees from the dogs. Sometimes they get to rough housing and knock baby trees over. The deer will stick their faces against the cages and bend it to get to the leaves They seem to like apples and cherry leaves the bests, followed by plums/pluots/apricots. They do some damage to my peach/nectarines, but not as much.

I HATE DEER!!!

This post was edited by Steve357 on Tue, Jun 24, 14 at 13:04

I am on the central coast of California in Atascadero. Flavor Supreme is my favorite pluot along with Flavor King.

Those are followed by:
Flavorosa
Flavor Grenade
Geo Pride
Flavor Finale
Emerald Drop
Flavor Queen
Dapple Dandy
Splash

Soil quality (or lack thereof) can have a huge impact. Soil quality where I am is thick clay.

I would highly recommend trying several pluots to see what you like the best. It is kind of like wine where the taste preference is different amongst various people.

Enjoy.

FN,

On the subject of overthinning, since we each have different sized trees what is the measure? i.e. Space between individual fruit, or number of fruit per linear foot of branch etc.

Along with plums I already have, I am experimenting with growing some of mine as fans and others with horizontal scaffolds. Last spring I planted various plum cots/aprium varieties. I have FS, Flavor King, Flavor Queen, Dapple Dandy, Flavor Delight, Splash, Flavor Grenade, etc and 3 (Geneva, Metz, Nancy ) .They all went in the ground last summer and I was surprised by the growth. I got 48 inches on some new branches so that by October I already started tying some to the trellis starting to form the base structure.

Mike