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Pluot trees in North Florida

amoore1205
9 years ago

Has anyone had success planting Pluot trees in north FL or southern AL? Very interested in these trees that are sold from groworganic.com, but not sure how that would work here. Any input is welcomed.

Comments (20)

  • ahgrower Horne
    9 years ago

    Hi Amoore1205,
    I am not from Florida but I live in Georgia and I have had great success with 2 pluot trees in particular: the flavor supreme and the 4-n-1 pluot tree (FS-FK-DD-FQ). I got one delicious flavor supreme pluot that survived on the tree and I posted it on this website. Go to "Alas, A pluot in Georgia" title and you can see it. I have had my trees for 3 years now and they grow nicely. Yes, I spray them on a regular basis and I have not had a problem with brown rot or anything-yet. The only reason that I did not get any other fruit is because I lost them to late freezes and severe windstorms. The bees really pollinated the trees so I had plenty of blooms and little fruit-but the late freeze killed them dead! However, if you are really curious and are willing to sacrifice a few bucks (should things not work out) then go for it. I was advised not to try to grow these fruit trees as well, but curiosity and strong desire got the better of me and needless to say, I will be on the case again this year. I have one of the trees in a large half whiskey barrel and it is doing great so I will have more than one fruit this year!! Good Luck in your pursuit if you decide to go for it! Again, if you are willing to accept sacrifice should things not work out-then you will know for certainty and if they do work out, then you will have the fruit that you desire growing in your own backyard! Take care

  • rayrose
    9 years ago

    I bit the curiosity bullet too, and last year planted Flavor Rich, Flavor Queen, Flavor Grenade & Spring Satin. I planted these bare root in January and they are all at least 10 ft. tall and growing like gang busters. They are developing fruiting buds and I can't wait to see how they do this spring. Hopefully, we won't have a late spring freeze, and I can give an upated report later next summer. My advice is to go for it and you can find Spring satin cheaper and probably better quality at Cumberland Valley. I bought my pluots at Bay Laurel and received very high quality trees. I used to live in Jax and your weather is more suited to pluots than mine, so my advice is to go for it, but you'd beter order soon, before everyone gets stocked out.

  • RobThomas
    9 years ago

    You can get Spring Satin much cheaper from either fruittreefarm.com or vaughnnursery.com. Both of those nurseries also offer Southern developed plums as well - from both the AU and Byron breeding programs.

    I haven't tried any of the CA developed Dave Wilson trees as I don't expect they would do well in our high humidity climate.

    I put in Spring Satin along with Byron Gold last December, and some of the AU developed plums two years ago. No fruit yet, though.

  • amoore1205
    Original Author
    9 years ago

    Thanks for all the great input. I had not heard of the Spring Satin. Will more than likely get a couple of those. We get an average of about 600 chill hours where we are. You think that is enough for it?
    Also, cannot help but try a few of the pluots after reading rayrose and ahgrower's reports. That is good news.

  • RobThomas
    9 years ago

    L.E. Cooke indicates 750 chill hours for Spring Satin.

    Here is a link that might be useful: Spring Satin - LE Cooke

  • rayrose
    9 years ago

    Cumberland Valley and Fruit Tree Farm are the same place. The catalog is printed by Cumberland Valley Nurseries, but the website is Fruit Tree Farm. Go Figure.

  • Scott F Smith
    9 years ago

    ahgrower, you should know it takes about five years for brown rot to build up to bad levels. Also, my Flavor Supreme harvest was one pluot as well this year .. off a 10-year old tree! I am going to try to hand pollinate it this coming year to see if it helps with fruit set, but so far its pretty much a failure. I used to grow Flavor Grenade and Flavor King, they set well but I got sick of all the rot problems and removed them. I don't do a heavy rot spray program, if you are spraying every other week all summer you can probably get some rot-free fruit. My personal attitude is pluots are not worth all that work, there are much easier plums to grow that taste just as good.

    Scott

  • ahgrower Horne
    9 years ago

    Hi Scott,
    I really enjoy eating pluots and I love plums too. I know I am not as seasoned as you are with fruit trees yet-but I intend to continue on with the pluot trees that I have because I seldom get good ones (pluots) at the market. Every now and then I will come across good ones at a farmers market, but it doesn't happen often so that is why I am taking it upon myself to try and grow what I truly enjoy-If I may-that is...
    I am going to add spring satin to my collection as well. I have a sensational august plum tree which is now 5 years old and it gave me 1 very sweet plum last year. I have a santa rosa, and a couple of unknown plum trees which are on my 2 fruit cocktail trees. The fun of growing things is trying out those fruit when they get ripe. And yes, the disappointments do come when I have to figure out what to do when I don't get the results I want after all the work I have put into things-yet, still I love it and the rewards are worth all the effort to me! If you can think of any other type of plums that are great for my area would you let me know please...I order on line often, I am thinking of ordering the AU series. Thanks Scott, I sincerely do appreciate all your excellent advice.

  • rayrose
    9 years ago

    I've grown just about all of the AU plums and the best one, hands down is AU Rubrum. Since you already have Santa Rosa, they will cross pollinate each other and you should get terrific fruit set. You can get it at Cumberland Valley (FTF) also. I get well over 100 lbs. of plums from each tree.

  • Scott F Smith
    9 years ago

    ahgrower, I can't complain about what you are doing as I did the same thing ten years ago myself - everyone here told me not to bother trying to grow pluots in my climate but I did it anyway :-)

    Re: the AU plums I had fruits off Roadside this year and they were not all that good -- better than store bought hard as rocks plums but not a lot of flavor. I also have a Producer yet to fruit. Guess I should have tested Rubrum.

    If you like to experiment I would consider some of the cold hardy plums, Lavinia and Purple Heart for example are cross-bred to be cold hardy but also get a lot of the disease resistant aspects. They are tops in taste, every bit as good as a pluot in my opinion. Their chill could be high.

    Scott

  • fruitnut Z7 4500ft SW TX
    9 years ago

    I've grown lots of plums and pluots. In my operation pluots are sweeter and some have better flavor. The only plum I've grown that's as good as a pluot is Emerald Beaut.

    The late maturing pluot like everything else that hangs on the tree 5 months or longer have some rot issues even in my greenhouse. Not brown rot and not much ~10% of fruit.

    The two best pluot IME are Flavor Supreme and Flavor King. Like everything else it's hard to form a solid opinion unless one has plenty of fruit to taste over about 3 yrs.

  • drew51 SE MI Z5b/6a
    9 years ago

    I'm trying them here too in the north. I'm not as humid as Scott, or you guys in Florida, so maybe it will be easier. Still can be somewhat humid. Grandpa's nursery in Michigan for years has been selling Flavor Supreme. It is the only pluot they sell. So it may be OK for here.
    I do though want to add some of the cold hardy types. The pluots are an experiment. I will also hand pollinate. I'm not going to wait and see if it's ok by itself. Having only one tree, not a big deal. I will try to observe any bee presence though.
    For me it doesn't have to be the best tasting or the sweetest, as long as it grows well here, that would be OK.
    And taste OK, it doesn't have to be the best.
    Thanks for the cold hady suggestions Scott. I may try them down the road.

  • c5tiger
    9 years ago

    Ray, watch your pluots carefully for San Jose Scale they LOVE mine and have almost killed it. I have a 2 in 1 FS and FQ. The scale attacked the FS side only and I was slow to catch on to what was happening. Now that the FS has been sucked dry they have moved over to the FQ. I spray dormant oil 3 times, fall, winter spring and still can't keep it under control. Check your trees for this before permanent damage is done like on my tree. This is the only tree I have that gets scale, hopefully you won't have this problem but be on the lookout.

  • rayrose
    9 years ago

    Tiger,

    Thanks for the warning. I will definitely heed your advice.
    I usually spray Bonide All Seasons Spray Oil in January with good success. I did have a bad case of scale on my camelias and the only thing that killed them was Adonis 2F insecticide. It's what exterminators use for termites. It's also a systemic and you can use it both as a spray and a soil drench and the label says for use with residential fruit trees. So you may want to give it a try.
    I had to buy it online, because the box stores don't carry it.

  • c5tiger
    9 years ago

    I spray oil at bud swell and by the time the leaves start to drop the tree is infested again. I have used Bayer Advanced that I use on citrus on my pluot and that helped. The FS side has almost no cambium layer left just a small strip along one side. This half of the tree has not grown in three years, it does leaf out and bloom. The tree is now badly out of balance and I don't know what to do. 4 years and only 1 FQ pluot fruit has been produced, if it does not produce anything next year it will get cut down.

  • rayrose
    9 years ago

    You may be spraying too late. It's supposed to be a dormant spray, and waiting until bud swell may limit the effectiveness of the spray. I never have been a fan of 2-1 or 4-1 trees. I think I would consider starting over with individual trees. You're just going to waste another year with the one you have.

  • Scott F Smith
    9 years ago

    If the tree is not very big put on a garden glove and rub the bark where there is scale. Then come back and do it again in a couple weeks - look in the nooks and crannies for the few left and squish them too. A soft wire brush or similar may be of help for the crotches. I was not having much luck spraying for scale but when I switched to this approach I wiped it out.

    Scott

  • c5tiger
    9 years ago

    Unfortunately it's about 10' tall with a lot of fruiting spurs, it would be very difficult to go over the whole tree like that.

    What is your best all around medium chill hour plum for taste and reliability? I have AU Roadside and AU Rubrum that are still small. I keep saying one of these years I will figure these pluots out but it may be time to just pull the plug.

  • Scott F Smith
    9 years ago

    Tiger, I don't have solid recommendations for your area. I grow lots of nice somewhat disease prone plums like Santa Rosa, Satsuma, and Laroda. Then I have cold-hardy disease resistant plums like Purple Heart and Lavinia which I don't know the chill on. Byrongold, Ruby Sweet, and Queen Rosa are new Georgia-bred plums that sound interesting but I have not grown them myself. I grew Ruby Queen from that breeding program, some years it was excellent and some years it was bland.

    Scott