coolrobby2003

Can anyone tell me how hard it is to grow a pomegranates plant or is it a tree? I live here in Illinois but i am having WONDERFUL results with my PRAYING HANDS!
THANX TO U!

Richard

A large shrub or small, multi-trunk tree prone to wandering branches and suckers. If you get a grafted variety make sure you keep the base free of suckers or you will loose the true fruit stalk among them. Not fussy about soil, but when you plant it in the ground you should dig a 2 x 2 x 2 foot hole to loosen any compacted soils. This way the roots, and hence the plants will get off to a great start. Rooting hardwood cuttings in the early spring is the best way to go, since any suckers will be true to type. The variety "Parfianka" is considered the top tasting variety -- provided you have a long hot summer. For cooler summer areas, the John Chater varieties "Eversweet" and "Golden Globe" are better choices.

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mskitty38583

i had no trouble getting the seeds to sprout. its just keeping the cats away from them.

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Richard

As with most members of Rosaceae, a graft or rooted branch of a cultivated variety is far superior in taste to the seedling of same.

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harveyc

Actually, Richard, seedlings can be fine. As described in The Incredible Pomegranate, propagation by seeds has been a common practice in regions for many generations. The most important thing is to select smaller late-season fruits as these are believed to have better chances of being self-pollinated. I have seedlings of serveral varieties and also sent seeds to Israel for Dr. Gregory Levin, former curator (for some 40 years) of the research station in Turkmenistan.

That said, rooted cuttings are still the most preferred method and can usually be easy to accomplish. This is the method used by commercial nurseries for propagation.

I did do some pomegranate budding but that was just part of a project at the USDA where I volunteered my time to test some cryogenic preservation. I can't really recommend grafting or budding unless you just want several varieties as keeping suckers under control can be a challenge.

What kind of specific question do you have, Robby?

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Richard

Harvey, I am not fond of Ashton's The Incredible Pomegranate, particularly coming out of what Judith Appelbaum refers to as a vanity press. Richard Ashton is certainly a talented grower and has produced some interesting material in the past but this book misses the mark. When I loaned the book to a colleague who teaches plant propagation and fruit cultivation at a community college, they felt that amateurs especially would be better off with a standard propagation book that mentions pomegranates along with other fruiting Rosaceaes, and the URLs to the USDA/ANL Davis accessions and Wolfskill pages.

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harveyc

Richard, the book is mostly a collection of information from various sources and is quite useful with some basic propagation information. Fond of it or not, some of the information is good. I bought the eletronic version for about $7 and thought it was a bargain. Dr. Levin also has said that propagating pomegranates by seed is satisfactory. He spent 40 years working with them and that is justification to give it a try in itself.

The links to the the USDA pages have zero information on propagation and none describing the characteristics of different cultivars. I have visited the site dozens of times since they grew the plants for my test plot and worked with me in selecting the varieties. Jeff Moersfelder, the manager of the pomegranates at the Wolfskill Experimental Farm is very knowledgable about the varieties but is much too busy to be answering e-mails with questions about the various varieties. What "Wolfskill" pages do you refer to? The staff is all at the Davis repository office.

If anyone wants to read an interesting book on pomegranates, I suggest reading Pomegranate Roads which describes the experiences of Dr. Levin originally of Russia and then of Turkmenistan. It gave me the sense that he was the Indiana Jones of pomegranates. He now lives in Israel and I have a friend there that has relayed messages between us, though my friend does not speak Russian and Dr. Levin speaks very little Hebrew so things are a bit challenging!

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Richard

Yes, I also enjoyed reading that book.

I would agree that propagating pomegranates by seed is satisfactory. But when an urban dweller like myself only has room for one or two plants of any particular fruit, satisfactory is not good enough. I want the outstanding cultivar!

True, that is why a propagation book is useful. A good one will "teach a person how to fish" and for more than just pomegranates. I don't think Ashton's book has any added value in this area.

If someone wants to know the results of pomegranate taste tests, a simple Google search will return many worthwhile results, such as the following posting by Joe Real: Pomegranate Taste Scores, November 3, 2007.

If someone knows which pomegranate they want and can't find it at a nursery, the ANR Davis Punica page is exactly what they need!

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harveyc

Richard, Ashton's book has information on the use of rooting hormone, fungicides, rooting techniques, etc. so your statement is a discredit to a man that has spent many years working extensively with pomegranates. Richard Ashton has, by the way, bred a variety which he believes to have potential as a superior commercial cultivar, naming it 'Austin'. He did not patent it as he is not looking for financial gains. So I still stand by my comment and suggest The Incredible Pomegranate highly for anyone wanting some general information on growing pomegranates.

You referred people to the USDA pages partly in place of The Incredible Pomegranate, but it has no information at all on growing pomegranates. It is an ideal source for requesting cuttings to root, however.

I said that growing pomegranates by seed was a satisfactory method, not that it would produce plants producing satisfactory fruit. As I mentioned originally, the use of late season small fruits generally produce plants that are true to type. People have done this for thousands of years and Richard Ashton has done it a great deal also. He provided me seeds to some varieties which are not available in the USA at the present tie so this is the preferred method for propagating these. I have some Mridula blooming at the present time from seeds planted about 18 months ago.

I started a pomegranate discussion group last year which is not very active but Joe, myself, and David Silverstein posted our tasting thoughts in that group. Anyone can see the information but people must register before posting. Here are the posts with the tasting comments:
Yahoo! Groups
Yahoo! Groups
Yahoo! Groups

This year's tasting at the USDA Wolfskill Expermimental Farm is tentatively scheduled for November 8th. If you happen to be coming to northern California around that time, it is well worth the price of admission (it's free!).

I took some photos last year of some Turkmenistan varieties that Dr. Levin was interested in getting seeds of. The photos can be viewed at Purely Pomegranates. These were late season small fruits so not very indicative what the fruits harvested at the main season are like, but it will give you a general idea. Also, please note that the plants at Wolfskill are not maintained for fruit propagation so most don't look great. They let suckers grow freely because they find these are ideal sources of new young wood for distribution of cuttings.

I can probably also distribute cuttings in two winters from now for a very modest fee. My plants are still to small to take cuttings, though.

Barbara Baer sent this Youtube video to me and you might want to view it, especially since it seems to document the case that the collection in Garagala, Turkmenistan is still intact. (Pomegranate Roads indicates it had been bulldozed.)

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Richard

Harvey, as I said earlier:

As a professional reviewer, I don't rate a book based on some sort of lifetime achievement award for the author, but rather each book on its own merits. And in return, I would hope that other reviewers be honest with me about their opinions of my writing.

Please post or PM me with contact information for this event.

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harveyc

You're quoting yourself in that last post Richard. Won't anybody talk to you anymore??!!! LOL Just joking. Part of the thing I liked about The Incredible Pomegranate is that it also included tasting results from different tasting events over the prior couple of years. These results were based on dozens of people, not just a few of us. The propagation information is basic but sufficient for a hobbiest. I believe you're reviewing it to higher standards such as as a scientific book that often is of limited use to a hobbyist.

There is nothing published yet about the tasting event, it's just a private e-mail from Jeff Moersfelder and myself. The currator of the repository also gave Jon and a couple of other fig fans (and myself) a tour of the facilities at Davis including those fancy pieces of equipment used to test DNA, etc. and mentioned that they were also going to include kiwi as part of this year's pom tasting. I just hope the weather is good.

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Richard

No. I assumed the intended audience is anyone who walks into a garden shop or department. Of these individuals I have met 1,000's.

Harvey, you know how I talk to myself all the time!
Actually, I wanted you to recognize that I think highly of Richard Ashton's experience and results with many fruits.

Yes, that's the stuff that D. Silverstien plagiarized from various copyrighted newsletters without asking or compensating the societies. It all comes up in a google search anyway.

Who is this person and how can I (and others who utilize the repository holdings) find out about such things in advance?

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harveyc

Gosh, you're one of the tough guys on poor David. He seems like a nice enough guy and I've spoken to folks down your way that feel bad about the way he was treated after spending his own time to collect the pomegranates to hold those local tasting events in the first place. Weren't those newsletter comments written by him to begin with? Whatever, I think it served a good cause by helping spread the information which is what CRFG is all about in the first place.

You can find out about the currator by doing a little bit of searching in Google, Richard. It's not that hard! Malli is the current curator and had worked in genetics for some 30 years, I believe he said. Interesting fellow. I have volunteered my time there at the repository knowing that they are short on staffing and Jon has been doing a fig project for a while, documenting all of the figs in the Wolfskill collection with thousands of photographs. I just went along to help do some grunt work of gathering figs and leaves so Jon could photograph them. If you've got a special project in mind, it's best to write to whoever manages the particular species you're interested in. They love to have information about the collections get spread out to the public.

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banana berserker

What are the chances of growing good pomegranets from a store bought fruit anyway?

Richard

Oh I see, my error! I thought it was some organized event you were referring to. Anyway, I really appreciate the information about the taste-testing at Wolfskill on November 8th. I went ahead and made plans to be in San Jose on Nov. 6, Richmond on Nov. 7, Wolfskill on Nov. 8th, and return to San Diego on the 9th. (Ms. Kitty, I'll leave the side gate open for you and the girls while I'm gone ).

You are correct that D. Silverstein is a pleasant person. I'm also aware that if I want to republish something I wrote under copyright, I need to get permission from the publisher to reprint it -- especially if it is going to be for profit. In some cases, publisher-to-publisher royalty payments are involved.

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Richard

The store-bought pomegranates in the U.S. are typically one of the standard varieties. Get the 4-digit code from the label on the fruit and we can figure out which one. Then, just buy the plant bare-root for $10 in January. You'll have fruit 2-3 years sooner compared to planting from seed.

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harveyc

Berserker - most of the pomegranates sold in the markets, probably 90%+, are Wonderful. As Richard stated, those are plentiful in various nurseries, etc. though I usually see them for something in the neighborhood of $19.99 at places like Home Depot and Lowe's. I suggest you do yourself a favor and go to Capitol Nursery and pay the crazy prices they charge and get yourself a Garnet Sash marketed by Dave Wilson Nursery which is really Parfianka, a top choice. Or you can get cuttings. Since you're in the area anyways, I suggest you come out to Winters on November 8th and taste what we have to pick from there at the USDA repository as you may decide to get something else. For a homeowner with limited space, I think a multi-grafted plant developed over a few years would be the way to go.

Richard, seedlings don't really take that much longer with pomegranates, just about one year later. My seeds planted in early 2007 produced flowers this year and are larger than any first year cutting propagated plants I've seen. Still, to be clear, I definitely would prefer propagation by cuttings if they are available. I've used seedlings where cuttings were not available in a few cases. It will be at least a couple more years before I can get fruits of decent size to be comparing.

So you're saying David plagierized himself? Can he write the same general comments for another publication? Boy, CRFG is going to lose volunteers for people writing articles if they start playing with those sort of rules. I remember seeing some tasting reports online somewhere in the past, but I'm not finding them in the SD CRFG newsletters right now at www.crfgsandiego.org - /Newsletters/. In addition, I'm not finding any hint of any copyright notice in those newsletters. It looks like more changes are needed in your chapter!

I look forward to seeing you up at Winters, assuming I can make it again. I'll probably shuck pomegranates the day before and my ability to attend will be somewhat dependent on how busy my chestnut shipping season is going at that time. Chances are decent. If it was a week later I probably wouldn't have a chance of making it since I've shipped out 100 boxes for the past two years on the Monday that falls 10 days prior to Thanksgiving.

Joe did a good job with the different scores he assigned. I hadn't planned ahead that much since I was wiped out from the day before getting prepared for the tasting. One thing I suggested to Joe was that he should have rated seed hardness.

Hopefully, they'll let us roam the block again this year where we can scavenge around for varieties of other fruits to taste. I really liked Balegal, Palermo, and Kazake which were not in the official tasting. I plan to add those to my collection. Conditions can be quite muddy though I think they would move the tasting out of the field if it had rained recently. I was told that 2 or 3 years ago a hurried taster spun out and wound up in a neighboring walnut orchard!

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Richard

That's true for potted plants in the late spring, but I have seen "Wonderful" sold bare-root for $9.99 at big-box stores and $12.99 at independent and chain nurseries in December-February. However, the big-box stores do not carry the Dave Wilson varieties, but the independents do. So for the same bare-root price, you could have one of these: DWN: Retail Catalog: Pomegranates and as Harvey points out, Garnet Sash is truly exceptional if you have significant summer heat. If you are going to use pomegranate in food recipies, I would also recommend Kashmir Blend.

Harvey, I'm not a member of a CRFG chapter, but I do belong to the parent organization. Concerning copyrights, it is my personal experience that the CRFG Fruit Gardener magazine has always been respectful of the law and been generous with granting reprint permissions.

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harveyc

The point I was making is that you charged David Silverstein with violating the copyright of the chapter newsletter when, in fact, they don't have a copyright notice in their newsletters. David is an attorney by profession and I think he would be mindful of copyright laws.

If you're not a member of a chapter then I guess you'll just need to watch other groups to find out about notices or send me an e-mail late next summer to ask me if I know the dates for any events. Or I'll try to remember to remind you.

I'm betting you may have some new favorites after coming to the tasting, though some aren't suitable in your area since you don't get enough heat. Even Wolfskill (and my farm's location) is a bit late because we're cooler than further down in the Central Valley.

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Richard

Oh they did at the time, and curiously the edition in question has been removed from the web. But this wasn't the only society affected. The real point I was making in the first place was that if the book The Incredible Pomegranate had been published by something other than a vanity press, then none of this would have happened, the quality of the book would have been more robust, and the marketing of the book would have been much more straightforward.

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