WEO Pomegranate Cultivars

[greenfig]

@greenfig, I got in touch with the USDA today and was told that WEO does host taste tests and tours of the orchard. In the past this usually happens in October. I will send you the managers contact info so you can schedule a visit. if others here are interested we can even schedule an event on behalf of the community here and go together as a group.

Awesome!! Thanks

[pombazaar]

Update:

UCD has released the remaining 35 unnamed WEO varieties this season. There are 37 unnamed WEO varieties total, all of which have no information associated with them. I'll be collecting data on these to determine their traits and develop future crosses. Hopefully there are some good cold hardy ones in the bunch.

[greenfig]

Great! Update us in 3 years
Do you think they will shipping cuttings this year? They denied my request last winter.

[pombazaar]

Oh I will! I'm very excited about these

They have become more strict about what projects are considered research and fall under the mission guidelines. People were requesting things for personal and home garden use and the acceptance criteria is now more strict. So it depends on what sort of research you're conducting. For all orders that are approved, it's very important that the requester submits their research analysis and any data that they collect back to GRIN for each accession.

[pombazaar]

Just a quick update on the WEO cultivars. Myself and a friend both attempted to root as many of these as possible last spring/summer. Nearly all of his died before they could root...I think out of 50 maybe 2 of his survived. I had much better results but noticed that it took an unusually long time for roots to appear. Due to this most of my WEO plants did not have a well established root system by the time they went into dormancy and ended up dying over the winter. I think I may have about 5 survivors in my inventory.

Due to limited space, I will not reattempt the failures until the survivors produce fruit.

[alanmercieca]

I was wondering if anyone has any detailed info on the pomegranates grown at Wolfskill Experimental Orchards. The only one I can find any real information on is WEO 42 which seems similar to Faye's Paintbrush. I'm in the process of trying to obtain cuttings for the 30+ WEO varieties that are listed to trial and publish information about them. Is anyone here growing any?

I have just gotten an interesting message from Justin, he believes that what we know as 'WEO 42' is basically one of at least two different strains of the same thing, the well known 'WEO 42', and then what is known as 'Faye's Paintbrush', which in it's nature has bud sports often, the bud sports are what produces the fruiting flowers which are flowers with red showy pedals, unlike the peach pedals of the male flowers. The 'Faye's Paintbrush' seems like a much improved 'WEO 42', he might just be right, oh and he has sighted a seemingly identical pomegranate variety to 'Faye's Paintbrush' in Greece, containing both colors of showy flowers, so 'Faye's Paintbrush' might have a long time ago originated from Greece.

I have discovered two other varieties a lot like 'Faye's Paintbrush', they both appear to have a lot of blooms at each spot like 'Faye's Paintbrush' does. I have no idea if they fruit, and what any potential fruit might be like

01) 'Sarrasa Shibori' https://www.garden-treasures.com/produc ... sa-shibori

02) 'Legrelliae' https://www.jardins-du-monde.be/en/exot ... anate.html