Plu. . . .ot May 28, 2007

Maybe you think I write too much about my kids. . . I kind-agree but man do they give me good material. This week for example when I told them we would be getting pluots for next weeks crates they ran with it. "Plupups?" my daughter said. "No" I said "a pluot." "Dad's getting plu-pots next week! they yelled across the house. "Plops?" my son said as he walked in the room. "No Plu - ots." I enunciated. "It's a cross between a plum and an apricot." "Mom, dad's getting Plutons for next week!" I understand their confusion.

As a matter of fact, last year when the pluots came in we got lots of questions about what exactly they were and if they were a modified fruit. Let me first be clear here - we never put anything into our crates that is genetically modified. Pluots are hybridized fruits. They are a more complex hybridization than a plumcot. Hybridizations happen both naturally and in a controlled manner. It's not quite as simple as that commercial where a girl on skates eating a chocolate bar collides with the boy holding a jar of peanut butter and they have a "Eureka!" moment. Basically it is when the material from two blossoms (through cross-pollination) mix and create a new fruit.

Floyd Zaiger is credited with developing the pluot and he has taken a note from Gregor Mendel's book - the Augustinian monk who in the 1860s began to cross breed different strains of pea plants and noticed that he could predict their characteristics. He theorized that there was an inherited basis for genetic traits. Today farmers take a structured approach to hybridization. They say it takes a lifetime to hybridize a new fruit. If keeping a fern on your desk alive is challenging then you've got to appreciate what goes into breeding fruit. When one hybridizes a fruit it is important not to allow any bees or wind to mess with your program (or you might end up with pluot-peach or something less desirable). When and if the progeny emerges AND it has the characteristics that you're looking for -- you take its seed and grow a tree. You keep growing and growing new trees -- continuing to expose your original blossom to new pollen and hope for the best.

Pluots are said to have 2/3 plum and 1/3 apricot. Apriums, which are another Floyd Zaiger hybrid, are the flipside of this combination. I find the early pluot varieties to have more vibrant tart and sweet tastes than their more quiet plum cousins. Try them and let us know what you think!
Enjoy and be fruitful.