Grapes alive!

Back in February I wrote about how I'd gotten a shipment of grape cuttings in from the T.V. Munson vineyard at Grayson College. These hybrid varieties were created by Munson more than a century ago to 1) resist the various disease pressures of Texas and the Southern United States and 2) thrive in our soil and climactic conditions, which cause many common grape varieties considerable trouble. What I got from Grayson amounted to a bunch of 12" sticks cut from their mature vines. To prepare them for planting, I dipped each in Dip 'n Grow liquid rooting hormone, then bundled them up in a trash bag filled with moist sphagnum moss, then wrapped that in a black, light-proof bag and set it in my cloning box atop a plant heating mat. The damp heat encourages the cuttings to callus, which is the first stage of rooting, and the dark environment discourages the cuttings from sprouting prematurely. This is what they looked like when I pulled them out:

Let's quickly go over the four different cultivars I'm trying to root:

BEN HUR. Parentage a combination of Post Oak grape with Norton and Herbemont. Vine very vigorous, very prolific, free from rot and mildew; cluster large; berry little under medially black, persistent; pulp very tender, juicy, sprightly, sweet. We consider this one of the most valuable of American wine grapes. Those who like Le Noir grape will like this, as it has all the good qualities of Le Noir without its tendency to rot or mildew. Medium to long arm pruning, Ten feet apart. Ripens in August 5th to 15th, at Denison, Texas. [I've been considering Black Spanish/Lenoir grapes for our place, but this selection seems to offer all the advantages without the drawbacks of that better-known type. Easy call]

ELVICAND. 1885. (Elvira x Mustang). This is the best of three accidental hybrids of Elvira with the native Mustang grape, illustrates how readily hybrids between cultivated and wild grapes occur. There is no mistaking that the variety shows Mustang much more than Elvira. A pure natural compromise of three very distinct species, — one from the far Northeast, Labrusca, one from the cold North, Vulpina, and one from the hot Southwest, Candicans; vine vigorous with rampant growth, leaves of medium size, leathery, dark green above, covered with dense white woolly felt on under side and on younger wood; cluster small, compact, shouldered, peduncle short; berry globular, clear translucent red, above medium size, very persistent, the pedicel extracting a small core, when berry is pulled off, as in Mustang pulp tender, juicy, of a very sprightly sweet, slight Mustang flavor. Vine bears heavily with long arm pruning. Colors at mid-season but should hang several weeks to reach its best quality. Birds do not bother it until quite ripe. Ellis variety has received very favorable notice in South Texas and in California, as making a peculiar, very agreeable light white wine. The fruit neither rots or cracks, and the foliage never mildews. Here is a base on which to build a distinct very successful class of high colored grapes for all the country south of Mason and Dixon’s line. [My late father-in-law had what we thought were sweet, low-acid mustang grapes growing on his property outside of Bastrop. They were quite wonderful in flavor. I'm willing to bet now that they were Elvicand types gone feral from an old homestead].

VALHALLAH. 1893. (Elvicand x Brilliant). Vine strong grower, foliage much more resembling Brilliant than Elvicand, and a little subject to mildew in wet seasons. Cluster small to medium, shouldered; berries large, dark, translucent red, globular, persistent, skin tough, pulp tender, juicy, of very good quality, — an improvement on Elvicand; has a trace of Mustang pulp flavor, but none of the twang of skin; ripe a little later than Concord and hangs sound a long time. Adapted to same range as Elvicand, and especially suitable for very limy soil. Plant 10 feet apart, give long arm pruning. Perfect flower. [This is what put me on the hunt for Munson's varieties--looking for a table grape suited for Central Texas conditions. It is reported to have flourished in trials in San Antonio. Who am I to argue with that?]

WAPANUKA. 1893. (Rommel x Brilliant). Growth medium to strong, equal with Concord, less attacked by mildew than Brilliant. Cluster medium to large, cylindrical, shouldered, properly compact; peduncle short to medium. Berries large, five-eights to seven-eights inch in diameter, globular, persistent, rich yellowish-white, translucent; skin very thin and delicate, yet seldom cracks, and handles better than Rommel. Ripe about with Delaware. Far superior to Niagara and Green Mountain. For nearby market and table grape there is no other variety superior, if equal, to it. Very prolific, requires short pruning. Succeeds well North and South. Reported as enduring drought in Western Texas among the best. Undoubtedly one of the best, if not the best, table and eating grapes produced in the United States. Takes the place of the Rommel, it being superior to it, although the Rommel is near the top for extra fine quality and flavor. Plant 8 Feet. Short arm pruning. Perfect flower. [The table grape description caught my attention. I'd never heard of this grape, and it seems pretty obscure, even for a Munson type. I wonder why it's not more widely grown, as opposed to, say, the Chanpanel, which is the one Munson variety readily available but isn't considered good for eating and only marginal for wine.]

As you can see in the image below, wrapping in a black bag wasn't enough to keep some of the cuttings from sprouting. This is Ben Hur, I believe.

And when we're talking about calluses, it's difficult to visualize. Essentially, from what I can gather, it's scar tissue that closes up the bottom cut on the budwood, from which roots develop. It's creamy in color, and can form beneath the bark as well as atop of it. Here are two pieces of Valhallah that the calluses are quite clear. Calluses are easily obscured by bark and the sphagnum moss--these weren't very visible until I washed them off.

And here's Elvicand. The calluses are obscured by sphagnum moss, but there's no mistaking that aggressive root growth. Elvicand was a popular wine grape pre-Prohibition, in no small part, I suspect, to the ease in which it roots.

So here they all are, potted up and ready (hopefully) to take root and grow vigorously for a few months, at which point I'll transplant to separate containers. Of the four types I'm working with, Elvicand seems the most easily rooted, with calluses and aggressive roots. Valhallah is next, with small roots forming on several pieces of wood, but all showing some degree of callusing. After that comes Ben Hur, with aggressive sprouting but only minimal callusing and no visible roots. Finally we have Wapanuka, with no sprouts, no roots and no obvious callusing. The wood still appears healthy and alive, so I'll exercise patience and keep a close eye on it for the next few months. Grape cuttings can live for months without developing roots as long as they've kept moist, and I wonder if the rarity of Wapanuka stems from a reluctance to root.

In other news, I got in a shipment of 25 piñon pine seedings in from West Texas Nursery. Alas, I wasn't paying as close attention as I should have--turns out these are pinus edulis as opposed to pinus remota, which is what I really wanted and think would do better here on the edge of the Hill Country. Regardless, they're both closely related pine trees that require alkaline soil to grow, and produce edible pine nuts. I intend to plant a number of them and hope for the best, while trading the rest for other interesting plant types. Wish me luck!

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Thrill of an early spring, redux

Spring is breaking in Central Texas, and I'm scrambling to keep up with the various plants breaking bud hither and yon. This is not a new experience for me. Consider what I wrote here almost one year ago:

We haven't had much of a winter this year. That's both good and bad. Good, because I absolutely hate the cold. The reason I tolerate the brutality of August in Texas is so that I might wear shorts outdoors in January and February. On the other hand, it's not that great for my fruit trees, which need a certain amount of chill hours annually to produce good crops. That's not a big deal yet, because we've only lived at the new house about 18 months and the trees I planted last year are still too young (for the most part) to bear fruit. Last year we recorded almost 1,000 chill hours, which is a significant amount for this part of Texas, which is more than enough for any of the fruit trees I have growing. This year, even with the mild winter, I'm at 600 chill hours--a decent amount for most of my plants.

This year, I'm sad to say, we're not even at a meagre 300 chill hours--just 293 at last reading--with little hope of gaining any more at this point. That is discouraging, to put it mildly. We had two big freezes this year, and one dropped down to 22F doing significant damage to some of my plants, despite the fact that I'd covered them and/or added heat lights. Last year we never had any hard freezes, but it stayed chilly for long stretches. Without sufficient chill, fruit trees won't produce. Most of mine are still too young to worry about that, but if this trend persists through the coming years, it will prove problematic.

What's not problematic are my passion vines. That big flower bud above is from my potted passiflora vitifolia, aka the crimson passion flower. It's already bloomed once in February and has set a bunch more buds. Out in the yard, my passiflora incarnata, aka native maypops, are popping up all over the place after freezing back during the winter. So some plants are happy with the warming trend. Others have a chance to get an early start on the growing season. Below, you'll see the haul I got in from the T.V. Munson vineyard at Grayson College. For the uninitiated, Munson was a horticulturalist who set up shop in Texas back in the 19th century and bred hundreds of varieties of grapes. He's also credited with saving the French wine industry. Many of the grape varieties he bred used wild stock and are particularly well-suited to growing in Texas, where other domesticated grapes struggle due to climate, disease pressure, etc. Sadly, almost all of Munson's varieties are not available commercially, but the good folks at Grayson sent me cuttings of Elvicand, Ben Hur, Valhallah and Wapanuka. I treated the cuttings with rooting hormone and currently have them warming in moist sphagnum moss to encourage the formation of rooting calluses. In about a month I'll plant them in pots and if all goes well, should have a bunch of vigorous (and rare) grape vines growing by the end of spring.

I also put some effort into propagating the Ison muscadine growing in my back yard. Muscadine grape vines do not easily root from cuttings, so one has to air layer the vines. This involves wounding part of a vine near a bud node, treating the area with rooting hormone (not strictly necessary, but I always do so), and then enclosing the wounded area in a growth medium. In the past I did my air layering using starter pots and tying the vine down... actually, it was pretty labor intensive are my failure rate was high. I saw online this alternative method, which involves cutting the bottom out of a liter bottle and just running the vine straight through, then filling with soil. It certainly is a lot simpler. Time will tell if it is more successful.

Last year, a great deal of my time was spent grafting apple trees. I didn't graft that many this year, but I still did some work in that area. Out front, I have two young Blanco crab apple trees planted. Or rather, did. One abruptly died last fall, and I'm still unclear why it died. To hedge my bets, this year I took some of the pruned branches and grafted them onto the two dwarf apple trees I so vigorously grafted onto last year. You can tell the Blanco crabs aren't domesticated because they've got some serious spurs on the branches.

A few razor cuts later, and the graft is completed. I use cheap electrical tape had have good results. I wrap tightly from the bottom up, then counter-wrap from the top down with a second piece of tape, that way, if the tape starts to unravel (and it does) the top layer has to unravel a lot before the more important bottom layer can come loose. In the end, I did seven Blanco crab grafts. I also found a branch on my young Arkansas Black apple tree had broken, but was still attached to the tree. I pruned it off and used the good sections of the broken branch to make two more grafts on the dwarf trees. I lost the first Arkansas Black I planted two years ago to drought, so insurance is always good.

This is the simple cleft graft process I use. It's the simplest form of grafting, but I've had excellent success with it. The base of the scion wood is cut into a narrow V, and inserted in a narrow wedge, or cleft, of the tree. Out of the dozens of grafts I made last year, almost 100 percent took. One Hall apple graft started to grow, but abruptly died. Then later, I accidentally broke off a King David graft that was growing vigorously, with no hope of saving it. So, that's a pretty good success rate.

This is what the cleft graft should look like a year from now, when the wound is scarred over and the graft is growing as a solid part of the tree.

The graft union doesn't always grow so neatly. Here's one that's bursting forth through the electrical tape from last year. The tape's not really strong enough to strangle the limb, but it is restrictive. After a year, once the union has properly healed, the tape should be removed.

And this is what it looks like when the tape is peeled away.

I also had two apple salvage jobs left over from last year. I ordered four crab apple trees to go along with the two Blanco crabs out front. Two were Hewe's Virginia crab, and two were Wickon's crab. Alas, the Wickson grafts were DOA, leaving me with only rootstock, and my beagles broke one of the Hewe's, leaving me with just one of the preferred types I'd ordered. Fortunately, the surviving Hewe's put out several branches and I was able to graft parts of them onto the two surviving root stocks. Because these are growing in pots, I was able to get cute and use wax to seal the ends and prevent water loss that way. Not necessary, but always an option.

So, what else is new at the Blaschke homestead for 2017? I'm glad you asked. Whilst I have a couple of paw paw trees, a che and several banana cultivars still in pots waiting on me to prepare their planting areas appropriately, I've managed to put several other new fruiting plants in the ground. The scrubby bush below, in the tomato cage is not new, though. This is a two-year-old goji bush. It struggled the first year in the ground but came on strong last season. I planted another type nearby last year, and it struggled as well. I'm hoping it catches up to its older sibling this year.

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This one is new. It's a "Sweet Scarlet" goumi, otherwise known as elaeagnus multiflora. A relative of Russian olive, this one's not supposed to be invasive. It's also a nitrogen-fixer. I've planted two. It just now occurred to me that I also planted a new pineapple guava (feijoa) last month, the named "Mammoth" cultivar. No photos of that one, though.

I also finally got around to planting my latest jujube tree--the hard-to-find "Honey Jar" cultivar. Theoretically, it's my last jujube. I have a li, Shangxi li and Black Sea already in the ground, and the li produced several fruit last year. I'd kinda like to get Tiger Tooth and Sherwood types, but this one will be enough for the forseeable future. It's kind of hard to see in the photo because of all the branches. That's what's left of the out-of-control Lady Banks rose bush the previous owners planted and then never trimmed back. The darn thing had a trunk six inches thick, I kid you not. There's a lot more of it outside the frame. I'm going to be mulching this one a long time.

Next up is a Sumbar pomegranate. It, and the Austin pomegranate about 10 feet away are already leafing out. They're both sweet types, so I need to get some more tart types to balance them out. The common "Wonderful" variety doesn't grow well in the Central Texas climate. Fortunately, I've got some cuttings heading my way of the somewhat obscure Kajacik Anor cultivar. I sampled this one at the A&M pomegranate tasting earlier this year, and it was my favorite of the lot. Hopefully I'll be able to root a few cuttings.

Remember those hard freezes I mentioned earlier? They hit my bananas hard, but fortunately the fruit that had already set survived, as did the plants. Not so lucky were my mandarins. Two years ago I got the new Orange Frost and Arctic Frost satsumas, cold-hardy types that had been developed in San Antonio and actually growing in the SA Botanical Gardens for decades, surviving repeated hard freezes. Unfortunately for me, those were mature trees and mine were anything but. Even covered with a frost blanket, these took a serious beating. The forecast was for 28F, which they'd weathered a few weeks earlier without any trouble. But dropping down to 22F and staying there for the better part of a day killed all the leaves and most of the branches. Fortunately, the lower branches survived and are now leafing out. These types are grown on their own roots, so I don't have to worry about the rootstock taking over. The next time we have a hard freeze coming, I'm going to wrap them with hot Christmas lights, like I did my bananas.

The panache tiger fig is another new addition this year. These are the nifty-looking yellow-and-green striped figs you sometimes see in the fresh produce section. It started leafing out before I even got it in the ground. I had great success with the unidentified open-eye fig at the old house, but that open eye attracted all sorts of flies and wasps. I ended up getting stung several times, so I'm all about the closed eye fig these days. I hope to add a couple more types, but deciding on the best option for my needs is not that easy.

My other fig, a Marseilles Black grown from a cutting I traded for years ago at the old house. It's been in a pot ever since, and not terribly happy about that fact. It's been in the ground for a year now, and while it leafed out all summer, producing a few small figs, it had very little growth. I'm assuming it spent last summer investing all its energy into growing roots. Regardless, the 22F freeze that hammered my mandarins killed this one back as well. It didn't die back all the way to the ground, though, and already I see new growth breaking out. It'll be interesting to see how much it grows this season. I'd like my figs to grow large enough to act as a privacy screen (along with the rest of my fruit trees).

This coming year I hope to get a few kumquats to plant along the driveway, a replacement for my dead Blanco crab, a weeping mulberry (or two) and a dwarf key lime to grow in a container. There are some dwarf papayas that would look quite nice in a container as well. Oh, and I also have some Texas (remote) Pinion Pine tree seedlings on order. So I should keep busy for the next six months or so.

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Going bananas!

Remember when we had our last big arctic blast of cold air here in Texas just before Christmas? It was almost a full week of chill weather, with temperatures dipping down below--or close to--freezing each night. I set about covering several outdoor plants that haven't quite grown enough to ward off freezing weather, and hauled into the garage a number of other potted plants of a tropical nature. Planted near the swimming pool, however, are a couple of banana plants that've been in the ground a year and a half, and by my thinking, were approaching fruiting maturity. They'd grown quite a bit bigger than they were last winter when a scrap of landscape cloth was enough to protect them. I wrapped them top to bottom using some plant frost blankets picked up at Lowe's, along with a large fabric drop cloth I had from one of my home improvement projects. The freezes were never severe, but as the temperatures were unpredictable, I left them covered for the better part of the week. When I finally uncovered them with the onset of 70-degree weather, I was surprised to find this:

The crazy banana plant decided to flower just as winter began, during the coldest week of the year! Since then, fortunately, we've had two weeks of unusually warm weather--even for Texas--so it's put on some good growth and opened several more petals to reveal several more bunches of proto-bananas.

Alas, the warm weather was not to last, and Wednesday we got a shot of cold air that prompted me to start planning protection (which is actually good news, as my other fruit trees need some more cold weather if they're going to produce any fruit). The previous cold spell resulted in a number of dead banana leaves, as the frost blanket wasn't enough to protect those in direct contact with it. The looming arctic air mass had the weather forecasters predicting temperatures dipping down to the mid-20s for New Braunfels, and I know from experience that we generally run 3-4 degrees colder. Clearly, the flower and bananas would be at risk if I didn't increase the cold protection.

Turns out I had the solution at hand. We've been replacing our old Christmas lights with energy-efficient LEDs over the past few years, but hadn't thrown out the old lights. I had a few old strings of big C9 size lights, and those give off a nice amount of heat. Plus, I picked up a couple more strands post-Christmas at a deep discount. It's a good thing I got the extras, because I discovered our new puppy, Belle, had chewed through two of the old strands. Wednesday night, I wrapped the two banana plants up with C9 lights--the larger, flowering plant getting three strands (it also has two large daughter plants, or "pups," growing with it--and one for the smaller plant. Over the top of each I draped an old, small blanket, then wrapped them with the much larger (and thinner) plant frost blankets. I clamped all the edges and corners closed with plastic shop clamps to shut out any drafts and gaps, then anchored the bottoms with landscaping stones. I plugged it in and went to bed. Alas, three strands of C9 lights strung together proved too much for the older strand's fuse, and it burned out sometime during the night. Fortunately, we didn't get down to freezing. I did get to enjoy the fun of hunting up a 5 amp fuse today. I found one, finally, and restored the old strand to working order. I also ran an additional extension cord out to the banana and connected the two new C9 strands separately. This should reduce the amp load across the board enough for them to burn all night without incident, and even if we lose a fuse, there will be at least one strand powered separately to keep the banana plant, flower and baby bananas warm. This is how it looks:

I'm not a huge banana fan, although I like them well enough on their own. But I remember growing up that my grandmother always had banana plants growing in the back yard, and was always disappointed they never fruited because of winter die-back. The possibility of actually getting a big bunch of home-grown bananas has me surprisingly excited, and if it takes Christmas lights and clamped on blankets to see it across the finish line, then so be it.

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2016 Texas Fruit Conference

Monday and Tuesday, I attended the 2016 Texas Fruit Conference, put on by the Texas A&M University Extension Service, now known as AgriLife Extension (which is goofy as all get-out, but whatcha gonna do?). I found out about it a few weeks ago, and as it was held in New Braunfels this year (previous years have all been in College Station) there was no way I was going to miss it. The first day's programming seemed geared more toward commercial farming and orchards, and I ended up skipping the reception in the evening to take the kids trick-or-treating, but my interest was piqued. I saw some researchers I'd only ever seen as names online, and met Dr. Larry Stein, who I'd discussed the possibility of planting Carpathian walnuts about a decade ago (the A&M research station in Uvalde was testing some blight-resistant cultivars. I eventually opted for pecan, which Stein informed me was a good choice--the resistant selections turned out to be not resistant at all, and A&M gave up on the great walnut experiment). I ended up picking up several interesting books:

The second day opened with the discussion I was most excited about, Dr. Stein's discussion on growing cold-tolerant avocados in Texas. He discussed the preferred rootstock and origins of the current Mexican-race avocados from San Antonio and South Texas that make up the bulk of the commonly available cultivars, and said that avocados in Texas are generally self-fertile enough that worrying about pairing A and B types for cross-pollination isn't necessary. He then showed that all avocados are not created equal, as some are much more fleshy than others. One example had a pit that made up maybe 80 percent of the fruit, with just a thin sheath of fruit beneath the skin. Alas, there was no objective analysis of the fruit qualities of the common Mexican types (all online sources are cut-and-paste descriptions interested only in convincing the prospective buyer that the 'cado in question puts Haas to shame). I'd have liked more objective discussion of the available cultivars, but I suppose it was a good overview. Monte Nesbitt followed with a fascinating discussion about growing olives in Texas (tempting, but I'm not going to go there), and Jim Kamas talked about growing grapes in Texas, with special emphasis on the new table grape release Victoria Red. Now I'm jazzed about putting up the pergola The Wife and I have discussed and getting some of those grapes started. Wes Mickel of Austin's Argus Cidery seemed at a bit of a loss during his talk, wandering off into a "It's really hard to grow apples in Texas, so we get ours from out of state" tangent. The Q&A rescued the section, however. I've long been interested in testing the viability of traditional cider apple types in Texas, and asked him if any work was being done with those varieties (most currently-available commercial cider is currently made from dessert apples, resulting in inferior cider). He explained there's a lot of interest in cider apple types in the coops of the Pacific Northwest, but nothing in Texas, because, again, it's hard to grow apples in Texas. Other people jumped in and the discussion moved into providing various fruit types to area distilleries, as fruit infusions are currently very popular, and the fruit used can be "ugly," with blemishes, bruises and the like which would preclude its sale to consumers. After the talk, quite a few people (myself included) gathered around Mickel to continue the discussion.

During lunch, a dozen crates filled with various pear type were set out. They all came from one of the A&M test plots and the attendees were ordered to take them all home, because the conference staff didn't want to haul them back to College Station. I've loved pears forever, and it broke my hear to leave the moonglow back at the old house, so I didn't need much convincing to scoop up a bag full to take home. I grabbed some orient, because I'd never had that type and it was recommended as a good pollinator for the moonglow. It was about the same as billed, mildly gritty, mild flavor, mild sweetness. Not great, but certainly palatable--nowhere near the sweet, juicy, smooth flesh of the moonglow. The Le Conte pears here were kind of mealy and left me unimpressed. The big surprise was the Shin Li Asian pears. I've never been much of a fan of the crunchy-crisp Asian pear types, as I've always found them to have watery flavor and apples do the whole texture better. But these, well, there was a bright, juicy pear flavor to them, with maybe a hint of pineapple. The crispness wasn't overdone. Looking back on it, I wish I'd have grabbed more of them, because they're definitely the best of the bunch.

There was also a box of various persimmons and satsumas on the registration desk. We weren't able to sample these, but they intrigued me. I'd never seen persimmons so red--they could easily have passed for tomatoes were they not marked clearly. I'm definitely going to look into Honan Red and Suruga persimmons.

Most of the time, I was seated next to Dr. Dave Byrne, an expert on rose breeding and peaches. He's a friendly guy, and confirmed that the La Feliciana I'd grown at the old house was not a good choice for this area. His discussion on peaches and stone fruit was interesting. Afterward, we had a brief discussion about the newer low-chill cherries available. He hadn't seen much about them, but wanted to get some and run some trials. The last formal presentation of the day was Tim Hartmann, who discussed growing exotic fruit. He touched on star fruit, dragon fruit and papaya, but what caught my attention was his brief detour into passion fruit territory. Whoo hoo! I wanted to talk to him more about this (turns out he grows p. edulis var. Purple Possum) but the presentations were running late by that point and the conference was almost over--and we'd yet to get to the pomegranate tasting.

Ah, the tasting! This is what I'd looked forward to more than anything else. I am a big fan of pomegranates, but have only tasted "Wonderful," and really wanted to get a sample of other cultivars before making a decision on additional types to plant in the back yard. Currently, I have sweet varieties "Austin" and "Sumbar" planted, and want to round that out with some tart varieties and maybe a sour type. Unfortunately, because of the running lateness of everything and the large number of people eager to sample the various pomegranates, I had to rush through the tasting. I didn't have an opportunity to savor them, and only jotted down my superficial impressions:

Ambrosia: Very sweet, but bland. Very bland. I'd been considering this one, but absolutely won't get it now.

Salavatski(?): This was a tough one to identify. The card looks to me like "Kala Vatsui Anor," but apparently no such pom exists. The closest I can find is Salavatski. Regardless, it had pretty red arils and was tart with a hint of sweetness. The seeds were somewhat hard.

Spanish Sweet: As its name says, it's very sweet. It also had good flavor--by far the best of the sweet poms tasted. Hard seeds.

Al-Sirin-Nar: I'd seen this one down at Fanick's in San Antonio but wasn't sure about it, as online descriptions seemed inconsistent. I found it nicely tart with moderate sweetness and good flavor. I'm inclined to get it now.

Karabala Miursal: Can't find anything about this one online. Misspelled name, perhaps? No matter. It's sweet with hard seeds, an okay flavor. Nothing special, won't be seeking it out.

Ganesh: The most common cultivar in India. Supposedly a sweet fruit with soft seeds, but this one was tart with hard seeds. Mislabeled?

Big Red: Juicy and tart, semi-soft seeds. Didn't make much of an impression.

Kara-Kalinski: Mildly sweet. I found it to have an unusual, almost apple-like flavor, very distinct for a pom. This is supposed to be a good juice variety with medium-hard seeds that have a nutty taste. I don't recall noting the seed taste, but I did hear others commenting on that aspect. This one's a possibility.

Vkusnyi: Sweet-tart taste with soft seeds. This is supposed to have a "complex" taste, but I didn't note much complexity. A long-keeping variety said to produce good juice.

Kazake: Sweet with hard seeds. Supposed to be a sweet-tart type, but I detected no tartness. Meh.

Parfianka/Garnet Sash: The reining taste-test champion, this is supposed to be the greatest, most complex pomegranate for flavor. Imagine my disappointment when I tasted watered-down Wonderful with small, soft seeds. Terribly, terribly underwhelming. Afterward, I spoke with others who'd had Parfianka before and they expressed their disappointment as well. Maybe this was just a bad crop? I dunno. This was on my must-have list, but I'm dubious now.

Sireneuyi: Bland with soft seeds. Supposed to have a "complex, sweet taste," but I found it unremarkable in every way. My least favorite of the entire tasting.

Kajacik Anor: Sweet-tart with hard seeds. Very sweet. Very tart. Really, this one is like Wonderful turned up to 11. I mean that in a good way. This was easily my favorite of the tasting--I sampled it a couple more times to be sure. This is supposed to be super-cold-hardy with long-keeping fruit. I want this one, for sure. Unfortunately, it doesn't seem to be commonly available. I spoke to one of the folks who works at the pomegranate testing farm, and she said she'll try to get me some cuttings when they go in to prune the plants this winter, so yay!

Guess what? They also brought out a couple boxes of pomegranates for us to take home. One box had Salavatski in it, which we didn't get to sample, and the other was a mix of random fruit from the test plot. I got a couple of the Salavatski, which is supposed to have a "sweet-tart fruity" flavor with seeds that snap in the mouth when bitten. I haven't tried one yet, but did crack open two of the smaller, unknown types. One had bad heart rot, but the other had pale, white-pink arils with a bright, sweet-tart flavor and hard seeds. It will be interesting to sample the other unknown types. I also got a copy of the tasting results. Nice to see my experience wasn't too far off the mark--apart from the people who thought Ambrosia and Vkusnyi were the best of the bunch (some folks only like sweet, apparently), my favorites, Al-Sirin-Nar and Kajacik Anor both scored highly, and Parfianka received no votes at all. Very interesting.

This being the first conference held outside of College Station, I wasn't sure how New Braunfels would compare with previous editions. I figure there were more than 150 folks in attendance, not counting the speakers. Afterward, I heard that this was the highest-attended conference they'd held thus far, so that was interesting. It might come back to New Braunfels in the future, or move around to other parts of the state. If it's nearby, I suspect I'll go again. A lot of what was presented was irrelevant to me, but a good amount of it was engaging. I'd like to see the pomegranate tasting moved to the first evening, so there's not the end-of-conference crunch to deal with, and it'd be great if additional fruits (persimmons?) could be added as well. I'd also like to see unusual/exotic fruit crops expanded on, because that's how I roll.

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