Cold Hardy Pomegranate Cultivars

[Sod]

This is where I need to be. I was gifted 3 varieties today, but I can’t remember what kind they were. I’ll look in the morning and confirm when I get a chance.

[Blake]

Bumping this thread up as I’m thumbing through Dr. Levin’s book. He lists the following varieties from the Garrigala, Turkmenistan Station collection as frost hardy down to 5-8F:

Kazake
Kunduxsky
kzyl UK 12/5
Meychosch
Melekeshsky
Achik-nar 4454

I realize many of you get much colder, but perhaps consider these fodder for trialing. After all, other than Kazake these are not varieties I see popping up in cold-hardy pom forum threads.

[pombazaar]

Great info! I'm very interested in trialing anything cold hardy, especially less common varieties.

Kazake and Kunduzski are the only ones that are listed in the GRIN database. The others may actually be difficult to come by. Do any of those varieties have plant IDs listed in the book?

[Blake]

I’ll take a look to see if there’s any additional info about those varieties elsewhere in the book. Those came from a section where Dr. Levin provided some varieties by category... taste, juice, sun tolerance, etc. The varieties I listed were in the cold hardy list, specifically, frost hardy to -12 to -15 celsius.

[alanmercieca]

Bumping this thread up as I’m thumbing through Dr. Levin’s book. He lists the following varieties from the Garrigala, Turkmenistan Station collection as frost hardy down to 5-8F:

Kazake
Kunduxsky
kzyl UK 12/5
Meychosch
Melekeshsky
Achik-nar 4454

I realize many of you get much colder, but perhaps consider these fodder for trialing. After all, other than Kazake these are not varieties I see popping up in cold-hardy pom forum threads.

Meykhosh is a pomegranate that is well known in Iran, I am thinking that Dr. Levin may have had the wrong spelling. http://www.arkeast.com/product/pomegranate/

There is a variety named Achik-Anor, which means the same exact thing as Achik-nar, There is also a variety named Kai-Achik-Anar, I wonder if 'Achik-nar 4454' is a misspelling. I wonder what the number at the end means

[Blake]

I’ll take a look to see if there’s any additional info about those varieties elsewhere in the book. Those came from a section where Dr. Levin provided some varieties by category... taste, juice, sun tolerance, etc. The varieties I listed were in the cold hardy list, specifically, frost hardy to -12 to -15 celsius.

Had a chance to spend a few more minutes with this… Unfortunately, there’s no straight-forward descriptions of these varieties other than Kazake.

For those that would like a bit of a deeper dive, there’s a section that details what are referred to as pomegranate sorotypes, a variety categorization system. There are 15 sorotypes (based upon what looks to be about 20 criteria for determining which sorotype a variety would fall under.)

The book states that many of the varieties in the collection at Garrigala were introduced from regions of Afghanistan and Iran and are related to these 15 sorotypes.

Each sorotype is named for a single variety. Quite a bit of detail about the sorotype variety is included in the description and some contain a list of close varieties.

Kazake is one sorotype. It’s referred to as a local Uzbek variety with Kazake-Anor listed in parenthesis which gives the impression it’s a synonym. It states that frost resistance is relatively high, which seems noteworthy because I don’t see frost tolerance specifically called out in any of the other serotypes. Close varieties to Kazake include the following:

Salavatski
Kai-Achik-Anor*
Bashkalinskii
Kavadany
Shah-Nar
Meikhosh
(“and others, which are found in Tajikstan, Uzbekistan, and Azerbaijan.”)

*Note the mention of this variety here versus the mention of Achik-nar 4454 elsewhere in the book. Sure, it’s possible something was lost in the translation from Russian to English but one gets the impression these are different varieties.

If there’s continued interest, I’ll post more details as I have the time.

[Blake]

Bumping this thread up as I’m thumbing through Dr. Levin’s book. He lists the following varieties from the Garrigala, Turkmenistan Station collection as frost hardy down to 5-8F:

Kazake
Kunduxsky
kzyl UK 12/5
Meychosch
Melekeshsky
Achik-nar 4454

I realize many of you get much colder, but perhaps consider these fodder for trialing. After all, other than Kazake these are not varieties I see popping up in cold-hardy pom forum threads.

Meykhosh is a pomegranate that is well known in Iran, I am thinking that Dr. Levin may have had the wrong spelling. http://www.arkeast.com/product/pomegranate/

There is a variety named Achik-Anor, which means the same exact thing as Achik-nar, There is also a variety named Kai-Achik-Anar, I wonder if 'Achik-nar 4454' is a misspelling. I wonder what the number at the end means

A couple of notes here:

• The book states there are 114 varieties of pomegranate found in Iran (the book has a 2006 copyright but it’s not clear if that’s the Russian edition or the English translation.) It lists a few of the most well-known varieties and also notes the “majority of Iranian varieties are identical with known Caucasian and Central Asian varieties…”

While it is certainly possible that something occurred with the translation from Russian to English, it seems more likely that naming evolved with local language as a variety moved from one region to another, for example Uzbekistan to Iran.


• There are many examples in the book of varietal names that sound like they could be the same but aren’t (ex. Ak-Dona & Achik-Dona or Achik-nar 4454 & Kai-Achik-Anor) and others that sound different but are the same (ex. Gei-nar & Gei-shirin-nar).

[alanmercieca]

Anor, nar, and Anar, they all mean pomegranate.

[pombazaar]

DK from Shevlan is listed in The Incredible Pomegranate as a Group A / Most Cold-hardy variety alongside Kazake and Kaj-acik-anor. Kaj-acik-anor is a Uzbek-Tadzhik variety.

Ak-Dona is a variety known to Uzbekistan and is hardy to -9.4F / -23C without freeze back. It is listed in Dr. Levin's Pomegranate book.

Deve Disi is a variety from Turkey meaning "Camel's Tooth" and is also confirmed to be very cold hardy.

Desideria Sweet and Desideria Sour are heirloom varieties originating from Albuquerque, New Mexico. Both trees survived -17F / -27C on January 7, 1971 and produced fruit the following spring. They are named after the great grandmother of Fred, the man who originally shared cuttings of the Desideria trees.

Uzbek is cold hardy to -11.2 F / -24C. It is currently being trialed against other varieties collected from different regions.

[alanmercieca]

I am going to be taking part in a trial growing of pomegranate varieties in NYC, they have a longer growing season there than many other 6b hardiness zones, and they appear to not have as much of a problem with late frosts than much of the south east does. There are already some pomegranate bushes surviving in the ground in NYC, I have not been able to get any real info about the variety(s), they probably don't know, although they are not cropping. It will be nice to test some varieties there, that are known for cold hardiness.