Avocado cv. Long South Gate

It was about a year ago when CRFG were asked to check out a very old avocado tree in the Los Angeles area.  The tree produced unusually large and long fruits, and the owner was very excited about it.  As the Festival of Fruit was coming up in summer of 2019 the LA area, I decided to visit with the owner while attending the event. My friend Ray and I met with the owner Leonard B. in August, where we found three very large and old avocado trees.  The trees came with the house and Leonard didn't know much about them. Only one of them produces these enormous fruits. Leonard himself does not eat avocados, but his neighbors pick the fruit. He provided us with the pictures of the fruits, that are about 9 inches long.

The fruits ripen in fall and the leaves have anise smell, suggesting that this is a Mexican type avocado. Leonard graciously offered us to collect the wood and some unripe fruits. Ray and I grafted the scions onto our established trees. My grafts survived the winter fine and are growing pretty well now. I also made three new Long South Gate trees on Aravaipa and Duke seedlings. I am looking forward to evaluating this avocado in the conditions of Sacramento Valley.

An interesting detail about the location of these trees is that the Leonard's lot is a part of the original California land grants in the LA area. These trees look old enough for me to speculate that they may have been there before the land was divided into smaller lots. I'd like to extend my speculation by saying that they maybe a part of the early avocado introductions in California.

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

Early blooming apples

These are the five cultivars I found blooming on March 27, 2020.  They should be good pollinators for each other.

Pervenec Samarkanda

I received this accession couple of years ago from the USDA Geneva collection.  I am interested to see how this cultivar will perform here.  Our summers in Vacaville are similar to the hot summers in Samarkand, Uzbekistan. This is a very early ripening cultivar, and can be ready from end of June in Uzbekistan.

Pepin Litovskii

The cultivar has many other names, and thought to have originated in Eastern Europe. This apple ripens in Russia in September, but I suspect it should be earlier here in the CA Central Valley.  The fruits can be stored up to four months in fridge. This apple came to me as a cutting from the USDA Geneva collection.

Pepin Shafranyi

Excellent early dessert apple. A favorite in Russia. The cultivar was bred and selected by Michurin in 1907. The cuttings came to me from the USDA Geneva collection.

Brushy Mountain Limbertwig

The perennial favorite at the apple tastings held by the Monterey Bay Chapter of CRFG. I picked the scion at one of the CRFG winter exchanges in NorCal.

Hidden Rose

Also known as Airlie Redflesh. This is a pink fleshed apple originated in Oregon.  The cuttings show up at the CRFG exchanges. I obtained mine a few years ago from a fellow CRFG member.

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

Papaya seedlings make excellent fruit

Two years ago a friend sent me seeds from a Brazilian papaya fruit that she claimed was the best papaya she ever tried.  I started the seeds, gave away a bunch of seedlings, and killed a few in the open ground in Vacaville.  When outside, the seedlings melted with the first frosts in the fall of 2018. However, two seedlings got lucky as they were moved to my work greenhouse. They grew well over the last summer (2019) and started blooming in August.

While the first few flowers fell off, the plant started making the fruits right away. I had the first ripe fruit in mid-January, five and a half months after blooming.

Soon after I was able to compare the fruits from my two trees. While they both are excellent fruits and definitely the best papayas I ever tried, my favorite is #2.  This fruit has really complex flavor profile with refreshing citrus notes.

The trees are very vigorous and will need to go out of the greenhouse soon. I wonder if there is a way to propagate my seedling #2.

Some publications state that budding is doable in papya https://www.ishs.org/ishs-article/49_10

The seeds from clone #2 are available at reallygoodplants.com

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

Cold hardy avocados for Sacramento Valley

Growing avocado trees in Central Valley could be challenging.  It is important to select adapted cultivars. I have personal experience with five avocado cultivars: Mexicola, Duke, Aravaipa, Royal-Wright, and Second Red. The latest two are my introductions from old (most likely seedlings) trees in Santa Rosa.

Mexicola

The tree is large and vigorous.  I planted my tree in 2001 on the northwest corner of my house. It started producing in 3-4 years after planting. The fruits are black, small, very flavorful, creamy and nutty with soft edible skin. It produces good crop every year between September and November. The trees of this cultivar are available at the retail nurseries.

Duke

This is an old Californian cultivar.  Was commercially grown before Haas.  The mother tree grows at the old Oroville Depot. Chaffin Family farm still produces them, and the fruits are occasionally available at the Chico market in October.  Bill Bird wrote about this cultivar back in 2012. The fruits are green, thin skinned, larger than Mexicola, not so complex in flavor, but creamy and smooth. This is a good cultivar to grow in Central Valley, because it's cold tolerant, maybe the most frost resistant cultivar that we have here. The seedlings of this cultivar make good rootstocks for our area. See how the Duke fruits compare with Mexicola in the picture below. Dukes are the green fruits on the left.

Aravaipa

This cultivar came from Arizona desert and said to tolerate the temperatures between 14F and 120F.

In my experience, it is a very fast and vigorous grower. The grafts and trees bloom in the second year after grafting, with good production in the third year.  The fruiting season is October and November. The fruits are green, larger than Mexicola, not so rich in flavor, but quite good for guacamole. I really like to use the seedlings of this cultivar as rootstocks; they germinate soon after planting, and grow fast. I guess they might be as good rootstocks as the Duke seedlings. In the below picture two Aravaipa fruits are on the right. The black ones are Mexicola.

The cut fruits of Aravaipa (upper left), Mexicola (upper right), and Duke (bottom) in the image below.

Second Red

The original tree of this cultivar grows in Santa Rosa, CA on Second street.  The fruits are red, hence the name. I collected the scions in 2016, and made the first trees then.  This cultivar seems to be the most cold sensitive from the ones described here. Nevertheless, the tree made it fine after 3 years in ground.  It was planted in 2016, and at the time it was a few months old newly grafted tree.  The temperature range it has experienced was from 23F to 108F.  Now, after the third winter in ground, the tree has no damage at all. In the first and second winters, the upper growth was affected. I didn't use any frost protective measures. The tree is about 6 feet wide and tall now, and it didn't fruit yet.  The fruit I tried from the tree in Santa Rosa was excellent. The fruits are large, dark red and glossy. The flavor is nutty and complex. The texture is smooth and oily. They are ready in February - March. See the fruit in the picture below. I'm looking forward to tasting my own fruits from this tree.

Second Red avocado tree is also very ornamental in spring when it produces deep red new leaves, see the picture below.

Royal-Wright

The original mature tree grows in a private yard in Santa Rosa, CA. I collected the material in 2016 and started grafting. Two small grafted trees were planted in Vacaville in summer of 2016. This is a frost tolerant (23F with slight damage of young tree, no damage last winter), fast growing, precocious, spring producing avocado. I harvested the first fruits from one of my trees this year.  As this is the spring ripening avocado, the fruits should be on the tree for about a year. The fruiting season is March to May. The tree blooms in April and May. The fruits are large, green, creamy and nutty in flavor. See the fruit size in the picture below. 

The new growth on this avocado is also very ornamental in spring.  The new shoots and leaves are deep brown-red. The picture below shows the tree color in May (left) vs March (right).

The last four varieties are not available as trees in commercial nurseries, with the exception of Aravaipa, that is available occasionally at https://www.greenlifebyshamusoleary.com/ in Arizona.

I distributed the scions from all these trees through the Sacramento CRFG grafting meetings and green wood exchanges. Occasionally, I sell the scionwood at ReallyGoodPlants.com

Shiranui and a Sumo seedling comparison

Here I compare the fruits from my Sumo seedling vs. Shiranui grafts of the wood obtained from CCPP (Citrus Clonal Protection Program)

I grew the Sumo seedling from a seed found in a supermarket fruit in 2014. I grafted the seedling wood onto mature trees in 2015, and the Shiranui wood from CCPP in 2018.

For the second year, they both produced, and they do not seem to be identical.  Most mandarin seedlings are genetically identical to the mother tree. The differences could be due to the:

1. Cultural or environmental conditions, they are from different trees growing in two different locations, 15 mi away
2. The Sumo fruit I bought in 2014 was of a different genetic origin than the wood distributed now by CCPP as Shiranui
3. The seedlings of Shiranui are not necessarily genetically identical to the mother tree.

What is different

My Sumo seedling fruits are significantly earlier than Shiranui.  Its is nice and sweet now right from the tree, but seems to be a bit dry. I should be picking all these in January, and I remember that they were even better back then. Shiranui fruit is not ripe at all. Its pretty sour on February 9 when tasted is right from the tree. In the pictures below, my seedling is on the left.

Navel Oranges and Cocktail Grapefruits

Navel Oranges

Three different navel oranges here, left to right: Early Navel, Washington Navel, and Robertson Navel

The Early Navel is sweet but simple; it maybe over its prime time by now. The Washington Navel is very complex with the most acidity out of these three. The Robertson Navel is my winner for today.  Very sweet, flavorful, and juicy.

Cocktail grapefruits from two different locations

I have a graft of Cocktail grapefruit that was fruiting for couple of years already.  Today I was gifted another Cocktail grapefruit from a different location.  My fruit picked today is on the left.  The fruit on the right is an order of magnitude sweeter.  It was picked probably days or a week earlier.  The rind could shrink in storage, I suspect.  Does anyone know if there is just one Cocktail or there are more? The differences could be due to the environmental factors, or they could be different fruits.  My husband thinks they are not of the same cultivar.