Plumots

I bought half a dozen fruits today to see if I liked them, thinking if I did, I'd plant a tree or two. However, the texture was kinda pasty rather than firm/fleshy like a plum. Did I just get some lousy grocery store fruit, or is this common?

Like any other fruit they are often not very good in the grocery store version. Even so, you should not try to grow them where you live, they are poorly adapted to east coast climates: blooming too early, pollination difficulties, heavy fruit drop, leaf diseases, etc. I have been fighting for five years and I finally got all of one fruit this year from my two pluot trees.

Scott

I grew both pluots (3/4 plum, 1/4 apricot cross) and apriums (3/4 apricot, 1/4 plum cross) in my 9a California location and had good luck with them. The apriums were especially flavorful. I have trees here that have not produced anything in the 7 or so years they've been out there. I planted a Santa Rosa plum for pollination insurance but the silly trees bloom at different times.

So much of the fruit in the grocery store is harvested before it's really ripe to lengthen the time frame for shipping. It will soften while enroute, but flavor and texture will be inferior to tree-ripened fruit. A lot of fruit comes from Chile. We get a goodly supply from Mexico, but I rarely buy any because of concerns about pesticides.

Thanks, both on my texture concerns, and growing them here in SW Virginia.

I have a pluot, first crop this year. The fruits are so much like plums I called the grower to make sure they aren't actually plums!
So, mine is as good as a plum, but the skin is less tart.
Christie

Thanks Christie... I trashed the yucky ones I bought, and won't try to grow them here in the east.