The Tropical Fruit Forum
Tropical Fruit => Tropical Fruit Discussion => Topic started by: beefyboy on November 12, 2017, 06:35:34 PM
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I am trying to decide between the two, and am thinking the earlier the better to beat the maggot problems that can occur!
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Just from reading here, the consensus seems to be that Avri (Avril?) Is the best. They are hard to find though. Do you know someone selling them?
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I think you pretty much have to graft your own Avri, unless you live close enough to get one from Adam.
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'Yehuda' is also very good. I have not had 'Avril'.
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I think you pretty much have to graft your own Avri, unless you live close enough to get one from Adam.
I emailed Adam months ago about getting one, but couldn't get a response. I did catch him on the forum not too long ago and asked about coming by, but he said he doesn't allow visitors anymore because he doesn't like dealing with people and his dog jumps on visitors' cars. I ended up buying a Champagne loquat elsewhere instead. Maybe Avri will be more widely available in the future.
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I got "Avri" and "Feluche" from Adam 6 years ago, and have grafted up a few trees. However, the fruit of "Avri" isn't outstanding, I'd say it is on par with most other regular loquats. The best ones I've had are from Jim Neitzel's selections. He has some amazing super sweet white varieties, and an orange one called "Jazzy" and of course the large "Big Jim". Also Ben Poirer has one called "Strawberry" which is pretty good. I'd like to get ahold of the large Asian seedless varieties.
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Avri to me seems like a low-acid variety. I tasted it under ripe and it was not very tart. I think Big Jims is like this.
The thing about Jim's varieties is that they can be super tart if they're not ripe. I'm thinking the acid plays a major role in their flavor being better than the normal varieties. I remember him bringing fruits to a cherimoya grafting workshop at Jim Bathgate's house one year. There were 6 varieties and all of them were really tart and I didn't like any of them. Then years later I asked for some scions and he gave me some fruits along with the scions and those were very sweet and flavorful. After several years of trying I managed to get a couple of them to stick on my tree.
I've tried one of the huge loquats in China and it's pretty bland. I don't know if it's natural or what the grower had to do to push the fruit to that size. It probably caused the blandness.