What is a Pluot anyway?

Amber Jewel---our sign calls it a plum.  Is it?

Dapple Dandy is golden streaked with hot pink inside. Plum or Pluot?

Flavor Queen is golden inside. Plum or Pluot?

Adrien with a stack of Black Friars.  Plum or Pluot?

DAZED AND CONFUSED: PLUMS, PLUMCOTS AND PLUOTS
(coming soon:  Autumn Glo---the necta-peach!)

(To read this entire story click on the August 31st ribbon.)

   Here's an excellent case of the produce industry creating confusion where there should only be sweet, juicy delight.
   Everybody loves plums, the late summer treat. Plump and round or taut and oblong, Black Friars, Italian Prune Plum, Santa Rosa, Crimson Jewel---the varieties are endless. Most plums are either dark blue-black or red on the outside, and golden yellow or red inside.
   Everybody also loves apricots, and in this beautiful, fruit loving universe, plums and apricots can get naturally chummy and produce offspring.
   In the late 1800s, plant geneticist Luther Burbank dubbed these natural hybrids "Plumcots," and went on to develop several of his own varieties of plumcots.  Plumcots are a 50-50, half plum, half apricot mix.
   Fast forward to the 1980s when a California plant breeder wanted to improve on the plumcot.  He crossed plums with plumcots, resulting in a fruit that was more plum than apricot, and he went on to
trademark his creations "Pluots," to distinguish the more plum-centric  Pluot from the evenly plum-apricot plumcot.  Pluots can be 75% plum to 25% apricot, or 60% plum to 40% apricot.
   All Pluots are plumcots, since they're part plum and part apricot, but not all plumcots are Pluots.  HUH? Remember that trademark name?  Pluot is a name reserved for fruit developed by the California plant breeder.  Two of his varieties pictured here are the Dapple Dandy and the Flavor Queen, so they are correctly called Pluots.
   Amber Jewel is a plum-apricot cross, not developed by the holder of the Pluot trademark, so it's properly called a plumcot. Or, as you see in the market today, signed as a plum, in order to create even more confusion in the retail arena.
    I have a headache now; I hope I haven't given you one, because there should only be sweet, juicy delight.  Enjoy plums, Pluots and plumcots.  They're all real good. If you're looking for yet more confusion, read the September Grapevine (when it comes out) where you'll learn about Autumn Glo, the necta-peach!
 

Fruitfully yours,

Karin