Loquats

[pogrmman]

I recently got a bunch of loquat scions to try. They’re super abundant here as landscaping plants, but grafted varieties with improved fruit are more or less impossible to find around here (even though they do produce fruit probably in 3/4 years). I don’t have much grafting experience, but I heard they’re easy to graft, so I went big. I got scions from both Fruitwood Nursery and AKME Gardens — if you’re looking for loquat scions I highly recommend both of them. They all showed up in phenomenal shape, the owners of both nurseries were great about answering questions, and AKME threw in a free scion, too!

The varieties I grafted up are as follows:
Advance — grafted 1/30/21
Champagne — grafted 1/30/21
Kanko — grafted 1/30/21
Strawberry — grafted 1/31/21
Big Jim — grafted 2/7/21
Gold Nugget — grafted 2/7/21
Orange Dream — grafted 2/7/21

I just did simple cleft grafts for all of them.
Checking my plants as they’re all inside the house for the cold, I was excited to see Advance bursting out through the parafilm wrapper on the scion! I think it may have already taken, which is great.

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Do any of y’all grow loquats? They’re basically zero-effort plants here — I have a boatload of wild seedlings sprouting up and along with figs and pomegranates, it seems to be one of the few fruits that grows well in our shallow, rocky, extremely alkaline soils. They also fruit pretty well even in partial shade.

[alanmercieca]

In Italy and in Malta people try and grow them in shady spots, because its fruit easily gets burn from wind, and from the sun during the hottest months.

I have loquat seedlings growing to use as root-stock one day. I start them from seed. I am going to be test growing them in ground 'in a climate that can go down to about 3 degrees Fahrenheit', 'our climate'. I am going to also be involved with a project to try and get them to grow in the ground 'in NYC'. Some parts of 'NYC can get down to 2 degrees Fahrenheit', 'some parts of NYC can only go down to 4 degrees Fahrenheit'. Some varieties of loquat can heavily fruit in coastal Virgina in the ground every year with no damage to the plants. So it should be possible in our climate and possible in NYC

[pogrmman]

Fortunately, down here most loquats seem to ripen fruit before the hottest time of the year so sunburn isn’t a huge issue on the fruits.

Some varieties of loquat can heavily fruit in coastal Virgina in the ground every year with no damage to the plants. So it should be possible in our climate and possible in NYC

I’m always surprised about how everything I read says that loquats won’t fruit if it gets below 27° or so. I’m not sure if it’s because of a long extended bloom period or what, but we almost always get below that mark and still get pretty consistent fruit. If we get to the teens or have a high below freezing we don’t, but usually we do. I’m kind of surprised that they can fruit up in coastal VA!
They really seem to be tougher than people give them credit for. I like the fruit on all the random seedlings people grow for landscaping around here, but they’re mostly small and very seedy which is why I got these improved varieties.

[alanmercieca]

They vary in cold hardiness from variety to variety, not just the plants themselves, the buds and the flowers as well. The ones that fruit the best in cold climates are the ones that start way later forming their buds and their flowers than the average times. The ones that don't normally start forming fruit until late April or early May. That is if they are also a cold hardy variety as well.

I have only tried loquat jams, so far I have tried 3 different brands of loquat jams. I have not tried the fresh fruit yet. Yet I know that they can range from rather sour, to very sweet.

Between loving the jams that they can make, the appearance of the trees, and the praise that I hear/see from people who have ate the fresh fruit I had gained an interest in growing them, especially when I found out about the tree in Virginia, and about another cold hardy tree. I could never have the patience for the tiny fruit version besides eating a few fruit.

Another nice thing about proven varieties is that you can know the cold hardiness in a lot of cases before you get it. Seedlings can vary on cold hardiness, and even on the time of cropping.

[pogrmman]

At least in this area, most seedlings have had some level of pre-selection for cold tolerance. Nurseries around here grow loquats from seed collected locally, so most of them are descended from plants that actually produce fruit here. And there’s enough nurseries growing them locally that virtually all of the ones planted for landscaping purposes do fruit here most years. The fruit quality varies a lot, though and they’re mostly too small and seedy. They’re not tiny, but when it’s mostly seed, why bother?

One thing that’s good about growing them here is that we tend to have cool enough weather in the winter to make the blooming period extremely long — at least the loquats in the landscaping will often start blooming in November and I saw continuing to bloom just last week. I don’t know if that’s just due to the pre-selection I mentioned, but I think it certainly helps with getting fruit more consistently.

[pogrmman]

I’m happy to report from the frigid wasteland that is Central Texas that my initial evaluation seems to be that out of all the most common landscaping plants here, loquat faired much, much better in this cold event than I expected. Lots of stuff that I (maybe naïvely) assumed was hardier like primrose jasmine, osmanthus, Indian hawthorn, loropetalum, and even native stuff like yaupon holly and Texas mountain laurel seems to be in worse shape than the loquats. Obviously there will be no crop here with the extraordinarily long period at or below freezing and two consecutive lows of 9°F (only the second time ever there’s been more than one night less than 10°F in one year), but the foliage seems to be mostly undamaged.

My little grafts have been tucked away safely inside with all the rest of my potted plants and I haven’t done a thorough walkthrough because everything is still covered in snow and ice and it’s cold, but it’s definitely promising! I had no idea how hardy the foliage is and at least the mature, older growth seems capable of taking some extremely cold weather.

[alanmercieca]

Our loquat seedlings are in an unheated/un- insulated shed, it's gone down to about 13 degrees Fahrenheit in there and they still have leaves on them, even the tiny seedlings that I germinated too late last year still have their leaves on them, and yes as they get older they do gain cold hardiness.

Their leaves are tougher and more cold resistant than pomegranate leaves when the plants are young, I also see a huge difference between the leaves of the loquats I germinated last year, and the ones that I germinated the year before that. I think that I will graft to the seedlings when they are about 3 1/2 years old, and then leave them outside when they are about 6 1/2 years old, by then the plants and their grafted on parts should be pretty cold hardy.

[pogrmman]

I’ve been doing some reading about loquat cultivation, and stumbled across this interesting document from Spain (in Spanish). I’ve found out some interesting things: like how they submit the trees to water stress during the summer to make the flowering more uniform.

Judging by their flowering figures, Tanaka and Ottaviani seem like they may be promising — both have a long bloom season which may extend the chances of getting a crop with a cold winter. I haven’t had a chance to go through the whole thing, but on at least one varietiety they mention frost sensitivity.

Obviously US availability of these varieties may be difficult, but it’s still interesting.