Loquat tasting in May of 2021

 The pictures and taste notes are all from May 23, 2021.  Please note that this is early loquat season tasting for this location.  All fruits are from Vacaville trees. The later ripening varieties are not ready yet.

Ed’s Delight - sweet with a little acid, soft, juicy, pear flavored

Fletcher White - sweet-sour, needs more ripening time, pear grapes flavor 

Surprise - sour-sweet, strawberry flavored, very juicy, needs more ripening time

Chuck - sweet, apple-grape flavored, dense flesh

Mogi - sweet with a little acid, complex flavor with grape, baked apple, strawberry, very juicy

Jazzy - very sweet, very little acid, grape flavor not complex, a little boring now

Gold Nugget - sweet-sour, mild apricot-apple flavored, juicy

Argelino - more sour than sweet now, very juicy, complex flavor but needs more time to sugar up for flavor perception

Strawberry - very sour and juicy now. There is might be strawberry flavor but needs more time to develop sugar 

Espana - very sweet, some acid , dense flesh, apple-strawberry-grape flavored

My picks from this tasting are Espana, Mogi, and Ed's Delight.  They seem to be the most developed at this date with the best flavors and sugar content.

Check our sales site if we have the cuttings available reallygoodplants.com

Loquat tasting on May 30, 2020

Describing here fruits of eight cultivars from three different locations. Argelino, Kando and Strawberry fruits are from my tree in Davis, CA. Fletcher White, Ed's Delight and Brandenton from a tree in Vacaville, and Haseeb and Frana came from a friend in Sacramento.

Frana, Ed's Delight, and Fletcher White are white loquats.  The other five fruits are orange.

Haseeb - Large fruits, soft, very juicy, sweet, no acidity, the flavor reminds the sweet soft summer apple with strawberry notes

Kando (Kanro) - Large fruits, firm, but still juicy, very sweet with low acidity, baked apple flavored

Bradenton - Normally larger fruits than the one in the picture, but all large fruits were too firm to pick.  The picked fruit is still not ripe, has some acidity, the flavor includes sweet under-ripe cherry

Frana - Medium size fruits, mildly sweet with no acidity, the flavor is mild and unusual, as it includes the distinct sugar pea and mild pear notes

Ed's Delight - Medium to large fruits, firm, sweet with little acidity, pear flavored

Fletcher White - Small fruits in large clusters, very juicy, very sweet with little acidity, bright pear-strawberry flavored. Below is a cluster of Fletcher White fruits. This year many fruits contained more than one seed.

Argelino (Angelino)- Large fruits, very juicy, a flavor bomb, as it contains high sugar and relatively high acidity, apricot-grape flavored

Strawberry - Medium size fruits, soft and juicy, sweet with little acidity, pear-strawberry flavored

My picks from this tasting are Argelino and Fletcher White


Plant material availability

None of these loquats are widely distributed. Argelino, Kando, Bradenton, and Ed's Delight trees are occasionally available from a few hobbyists, check the gardening forums and Facebook groups when looking for them. The scions are occasionally available at the CRFG exchanges. Currently, we are shipping the scions of Kando, Argelino, and Fletcher White, and we might have the trees later. Please check Really Good Plants for availability.

Loquat tasting on May 23, 2020

All fruits were collected from my combination tree on the same day, May 23 of 2020 in Davis, CA.

McBeth and Gold Nugget are pretty sweet but simple and flat. Franceschi Park surprised me this year as it developed a good amount of sugar.  The flavor is very nice, with the honey notes, some acidity, and the fruit is very juicy. I only have a very small graft and should back it up.  It will never be overly popular as the amount of flesh is not very large, but I want preserve it. The best loquats here are Argelino and Kando.  They are quite different, and it its hard for me to place one over the other.  However, I found that some people do not detect/sense the sugars in Kando.

Here is the order of my preference:
1. Argelino
1. Kando
3. Franceschi Park
4. McBeth
5. Gold Nugget

Plant material availability

McBeth and Gold Nugget are available from La Verne nursery which supplies them to the large retailers. Argelino and Kando trees are occasionally available from a few hobbyists, check the gardening forums and Facebook groups when looking for them.  Currently, we are shipping the scions, and we might have the trees later. Please check Really Good Plants for availability.
The original tree of Franceschi Park loquat grows at the Franceschi Park in Santa Barbara, California. See the picture and location of the tree below.

Loquat cv. Fletcher White

I have a relatively young tree of this cultivar that I purchased from Patrick Shafer in 2017. He sold it to me as Fletcher, but I only could find one mention of an old variety with this name. That mentioned cultivar should have reddish fruits.  I keep my tree under the "Fletcher White" name. I noticed that the last time Patrick was offering these trees, they were also under "Fletcher White".

Last year I took a few pictures of the tree and fruits, but never managed to put the info together before now.

The plant is growing in full sun in Vacaville, CA, and it produces very well. The bloom bellow is from December 20, 2018.

The fruit set in the image below is from May 17, 2019

The first fruit I tried the same day, May 17, 2019

The fruits are very flavorful and sweet when they are ripe.  Wait for the deep yellow color, that is their ripe stage. I'd say that this cultivar falls into the white loquat type, even as it's a bit yellowish. The pleasant surprise was to find out that this cultivar has one seed per fruit.  I found only one or two fruits that had two seeds in them.  All others were single seeded.

Another set of fruit pictures are from May 26, 2019.

To my knowledge, the only person who has trees of this cultivar for sale is Patrick Shafer in Philo, CA. His email is coolhybrids at yahoo. Right now (March 26, 2020) I have a small amount of scions for sale at ReallyGoodPlants.com