Brian

Hello FruitCocktail, I think the majority of Pluot varieties you've listed are still under patent restrictions, so it unlikely you'll see them on sale in the Netherlands for a while; I was very surprised to find a Dapple Dandy tree in my local garden center. I have the following Pluot trees in my garden: Dapple Dandy, Flavor Candy, Pink Candy and a UK sourced Flavor King (not the same as the US Flavor King). I also have a Golden Japan and Santa Rosa but the Golden Japan was planted in the wrong place, so I took some scion cuttings before removing the tree. Personally, I thought the GJ fruit was quite nice but the bulk of the crop was always ruined by plum moth caterpillars. My Dapple Dandy and Pink Candy are still too young to bear fruit. I've had a couple of crops on the Flavor Candy tree - they were really good. I've taken some cuttings and plan on grafting them on to the Pink Candy tree, as it appears they are waking up around the same time. The Dapple Dandy seems be start a bit later than the others. I plan on grafting a couple of Golden Japan scions on to the Dapple Dandy, as it it also appears to wake up a bit later. You can get the Flavor Candy, Pink Candy and Golden Japan from: https://www.promessedefleurs.com/solrsearch/result/?q=pluot , however, I think they're probably sold out by now. Good luck. Let us know how you get on.

@weknow Thanks for the quick feedback. Can you tell me what the weather conditions should be before I start using the pheromone traps? I'm not sure what to look for. I was thinking it might be a good idea to look at the development of the flowers on the trees the before deciding to put the traps out. Also, I don't know how long the pheromone pipettes will last. If I put them out too early they'll be wasted. Too late, and the moths will have already attacked the crop.

@MSDG. Thanks for the suggestion. I've thought about buying pheromone traps in the past but I'm not really sure when to place them. Should they be put in place when the tree is flowering or just after the tree has finished flowering? Actually, I'd sort of given up on European plum varieties when I discovered that most of the very early flowering Japanese plum trees don't seem to be affected by plum moths. I guess these trees get started a bit too early for the moths. Unfortunately, Golden Japan seem to flower just a little bit later than many other Japanese varieties (and just early enough for the moths). I think I might give the traps a try next year. I still have a Victory plum tree that I never get anything from because of the moths. Thanks again.

@MSDG. Thanks for the suggestion. I've thought about buying pheromone traps in the past but I'm not really sure when to place them. Should they be put in place when the tree is flowering or just after the tree has finished flowering? Actually, I'd sort of given up on European plum varieties when I discovered that most of the very early flowering Japanese plum trees don't seem to be affected by plum moths. I guess these trees get started a bit too early for the moths. Unfortunately, Golden Japan seems to flower just a little bit later than many other Japanese varieties (and just early enough for the moths). I think I might give the traps a try next year. I still have a Victoria plum tree that I never get anything from because of the moths. Thanks again.

I have a Golden Japan plum tree in my garden that's been there for about five years. In all that time, I've never managed to taste any of the fruit it has produced. Firstly, the birds seem to get to them just as they're ripening. And secondly, they're always infested with plum moth larvae. It's a real shame - they really look nice - but only on the outside.

What really surprised me was the flavour quality. This variety appears to ripen quite early. As most of the Pluots I've read about are grown in areas such as California, it would be reasonable to expect many of these varieties to ripen about a month later in our region. I also have two Dapple Dandy trees that I created from bud grafts last year. I cut the top off the root stock in mid April, and since then the buds have grown hugely. I've heard Dapple Dandy ripens in August in the California region. That probably means it'll be ready for us some time in September. As I'm running out of space for the trees, I'm glad I was able to bud graft Flavor Candy and Dapple Dandy onto the same tree. Can't wait for the first harvest of Dapple Dandy from my own tree. I've only had super market quality ones up to now. I've never grown Globus or Cott-N-Candy before. Let us know how you get on with yours, @Roland.

It's been very rainy recently in Bilthoven. Unfortunately, the fruit on my plum trees are bursting because of the excessive rain. I was hoping to taste the fruit from my Flavor Candy pluot tree but they were also splitting due to the water. I protected the few fruit by putting a stocking around them. This evening I found one of them on the floor; I guess a bird may have knocked it off. I decided to take in inside and clean it up. The taste was absolutely amazing!! Very firm and juicy. It actually tastes like a pineapple. I then tested the sugar content and discovered that it wasn't even fully ripe. At only 14 brix, it tasted great! It was so good that I took extreme measures to protect the rest. Great tasting fruit, and it's still only July! You'll never get anything as good as this from a super market. Anyone else growing pluots in the Netherlands?

It's been very rainy recently in Bilthoven. Unfortunately, the fruit on my plum trees are bursting because of the excessive rain. I was hoping to taste the fruit from my Flavor Candy pluot tree but they were also splitting due to the water. I protected the few fruit by putting a stocking around them. This evening I found one of them on the floor; I guess a bird may have knocked it off. I decided to take in inside and clean it up. The taste was absolutely amazing!! Very firm and juicy. It actually tastes like a pineapple. I then tested the sugar content and discovered that it wasn't even fully ripe. At only 14 brix, it tasted great! It was so good that I took extreme measures to protect the rest. Great tasting fruit, and it's still only July! You'll never get anything as good as this from a super market.

You can try purchasing a Flavor Candy pluot tree as a pollinator for your Dapple Dandy. I managed to get some ripe fruit from my Flavor Candy tree two years ago but unfortunately nothing more since then. They were pretty good - very crunchy and sweet. I didn't think they'd ripen so well here in Bilthoven. Unfortunately, I don't know what pollinated it. I have a golden japan tree quite close by but I don't think that was it. I recently bought a Dapple Dandy tree, hoping that it would be a more a reliable pollinator for the flavor candy. I'll also graft some buds from my beauty plum tree onto both pluot trees. I've heard Beauty is a good pollinator for other plum and pluot varieties. I should also mention that I purchased a Pink Candy pluot earlier this year, also from the Promessedefleurs website. I bought the tree because it states on the webite that this variety is very productive. I'm hoping it will be an additional pollinator for my other two pluot trees. It's appears to be nice strong growing tree. I've already selected the branches I want to keep, and have trained them to grow almost horizontally. Hopefully, this will slow the growth rate of the tree and promote the forming of fruiting buds. I've left one branch on the tree to grow vertically; I'll use this one as material for bud grafting a few new trees in September. I'll upload pictures, at some point. Promessedefleurs also sells Flavor Supreme and Purple Candy. Don't waste your time or money on those varieties - I've had both - they're useless! https://www.promessedefleurs.com/fruitiers/fruitiers-de-a-a-z/pluot-flavor-candy-prunus-pluot.html