Pouteria species in the open ground in Davis, CA

 This post describes the Pouteria plants which survived multiple winters and summers in Davis, California.

My Montero Lucuma plant (Pouteria lucuma biotype Montero) was started from the seed of the tree growing at the San Diego botanical garden. Below are the pictures of the fruit from 2017.

The tree is over 8 ft now and I just noticed the first flower bud on it, the picture below.

The Montero biotype tree has short internodes with dark green leaves, the picture below.

My second Lucuma tree was started from a yellow type of Lucuma fruit in 2017 as well. This tree is now well over 10 feet and bloomed as least once already last year. I just found new flower buds on it, the picture is below.

The leaves on this tree are larger, medium green, and the internodes are longer, see the picture below.

I purchased my Canistel tree (Pouteria campechiana) as a small seedling from Ben’s Subtropicals during the Festival of Fruit in San Luis Obispo in 2016. This turned out to be the most vigorous Pouteria I have. The tree bloomed already for a number of years. Probably 10-11 feet tall now.

The fourth Pouteria I have in the ground is Cinnamon Apple, Pouteria hypoglauca. I purchased this tree in 2017 from the Roger Meyer estate. While this tree never bloomed yet, I’m still surprised that it can survive in my climate especially after the winter we just had in 2022-2023. Below is a picture of one of the branches ends. This tree is about 4 feet tall.

Harvey’s Early Yellow Peach

 A few years ago, my friend Harvey Correia discovered a large branch producing yearly peaches on his old peach tree. He purchased the tree over 25 years ago as Last Chance and recalls that he might have grafted it with Fairtime, both of which are late season peaches. The tree still produces at least one type of late peaches. I need to go back later in the season and taste those. He suspects that this branch with early yellow peaches that ripen in early June might be coming from the rootstock or could be a sport of the grafted variety. Unless we find out that this is known cultivar, we are going to call this branch Harvey’s Early Yellow peach.

The fruits are slightly flattened, medium in size, red and spotted. The flesh is yellow, melting, partially or almost freestone. The flavor is excellent with high sugar and high acid. I tend to think that it’s a Lovell seedling (the rootstock shoot). The Lovell fruits I had before were somewhat similar in the flavor, but those were ripening later in the season.