Loquat Photos: Contest for Best Looking- Also Post your Varieties for 2022

[sc4001992]

How about everyone posting their best loquat photos. Take any photo of your loquat tree with fruits or just the fruits.

1. Post your photo, from now until July 2022. The photo must be one that you took in 2022.
2. Best looking photo wins - judging by most votes at the end of contest date, July 31, 2022.
3. Provide the variety name, or if seedling fruit, indicate that.
4. Contest ends in July when most loquat fruits should have ripened at least once.
5. No limit to number of entry. Just indicate your entry number (sequential order in post).
6. I will provide a prize if you want one (motivation for you to post). A selection of a loquat from my collection.

Here's the first entry below;

1) Loquat, Graham_Harding (seedling tree).
- Fruit has white flesh, medium to large fruits
- Sweet taste, when ripe no acid/tart, just nice a sweet.
- Production: low quantity of fruits, maybe the reason the fruits are med-large size.
- Ripens in Feb-Mar

Photo of Graham_Harding, entry #1:

[sc4001992]

2) Loquat, KT14 (seedling tree).
- Fruit has orange flesh, medium fruits
- Sweet taste, when ripe no acid/tart, just nice a sweet.
- Production: med-high quantity of fruits.
- Ripens in Feb-April

Photo of KT14, entry #2:

[simon_grow]

I posted these pictures before but they’re worth re posting. This picture is Maurice Kong seedling fruit grown at Leo Manuel’s house. It is an orange fleshed fruit and the fruit in this picture was taken many years ago. It was the first year this tree produced fruit and the quality of the fruit was just ok, not very sweet. Keep in mind it was the first year the tree fruited and Leo did not thin the fruit to increase size so the fruit can potentially grow larger.

Photo #1



These pictures are also reposted from my previous threads. These fruit are all Big Jim’s from my tree. The fruit is orange fleshed and is of good quality. If fruit is thinned and the tree is fertilizer properly, the fruit are huge and the flesh is sweet with a perfect sugar acid balance. The fruit must turn dark orange to be full flavor and later season fruit are higher quality than early fruit. Once the fruit turns dark orange, however, if not immediately consumed, the quality declines and the tree sucks back some of the sugars and the skin will wrinkle.

Photo #2

Photo #3

Simon

[sc4001992]

Ok, yes, it's worth re-posting.

Nice looking fruits Simon.

[digigarden]

great pictures, i would love to eat some of these 

[sc4001992]

.

[fruit4me]

Official start of loquat season

[sc4001992]

Yes, my loquats are starting to ripen. Nice fruit photo Max.

So far none of the named varieties I have fruiting tastes better than the Big Jim. The Big Jim (orange flesh) gets pretty large fruits, but not as large as the Peluche. I also have a new Italian loquat (Imperiale) which seems to be promising, it's fruits are not ripe yet, but the size is close to the Peluche fruits. One other big fruit is the Exotica Large Orange (from  MarkLee) which is slightly smaller than the Peluche. When these fruits ripen, I will take some photos side by side to show how large they are.

[sc4001992]

I updated the subject on this post so that it is now for the photo contest and also for everyone to post their photos of the loquats you have fruiting for 2022.

When you post your loquat fruits, please mention the variety name, or if it's a seedling mention that.

This may be a good place for everyone to post their loquat fruits and describe the tastes, make taste comparisons so others can learn which ones are good to grow from your experience. Many of my loquats are starting to fruit so I will be posting photos of each variety I have and mention how they taste in comparison to my Big Jim (my gold standard).

[sc4001992]

Max, your fruit looks good, what variety is it?

[fruit4me]

It's a selected seedling. I got the scions from Xshen. Its makes big fruits(egg size) with average 3 to 4 seeds. Sweet, super juicy,  with good amount of flesh. Good enough for me. I'm not to picky for loquats.

[sc4001992]

Oh wow, sounds like something I need. Send me a PM if you want to trade for a few cuttings, I have 72 varieties now (21 are my seedling trees).

[sc4001992]

just picked some Big Jim fruits to give to some friends. Here's some photos for today. Only a handful of my other varieties are getting ripe now. Peluche is still green/yellow and getting bigger.

[strom]

This is an unknown variety growing at parental units' yard.  Likely bird-dropped seed 7-10 years ago, unknown variety.  Gardener chopped all lower branches off to shape it into a "tree" a few years ago before it began setting fruit, requires ladder to access   Branches are pulled down for easier pictures.  Fruit is sweet, tart, quite tasty.  It might be fun to graft known varieties to this, but my only experience is so far is with two apple trees.  Maybe someday I'll try to graft something to the lower trunk, although I noticed a sucker growing, it is now 2ft tall, maybe I can graft to that?

[JCorte]

Harvested some Big Jim today.  I have a few others but they are not fruiting yet.  I like that the Big Jim can be picked at different stages.  I like them when they’re lighter colored and tart as well as dark orange and sweet. 





Janet

[sc4001992]

strom, nice looking fruits on your tree. I like the markings on the fruit, kinda different from others I grow.
If you want to graft a named variety, then send me a PM and I will trade with you. Yes, you can graft to the upper branches or the new lower shoots on your tree (3 ft). My Big Jim tree that has overy 100+ grafts (74 varieties) has many new shoots from the very bottom (near graft point) so I also use those shoots to graft some varieties. Even the short shoots (3-5 ft long) has fruits from my grafted varieties. If you can graft apples, then loquats are just as easy. If you need some pointers on grafting loquats just ask me. You will need to give your seedling/unknown loquat tree a name so I can document that in my list of varieties I grow. Your fruit definitely has some unique markings. I have 21 different seedling trees which fruits, and the ones that has promise and tastes good gets assigned a name, the bad tasting ones I just top work with my good varieties.

Janet, Wow !
Your fruits are huge, my Big Jim doesn't get that big but I do get lots more fruits in each cluster. I would like to get a few cuttings from your tree when it finishes with the fruits, I can trade you any (except 2 types) named variety you like. Send me a PM if you like to trade.

If I gave my vote for best looking photo today, I think Janet your loquat photos would be a winner. There could be many more good photos to come before we finish this contest.

[sc4001992]

Janet,

Can you weigh one of your large Big Jim fruit and report back here. Either you have small hands or your fruit is huge. It looks large than my Peluche fruits now, but my Peluche should get larger. Last year the Peluche fruit was 99 grams. Your Big Jim looks like it might be close to that weight, and it might be larger than the photo of the fruit Simon posted here.

[JCorte]

Not sure how large others have grown Big Jims.  The other loquats in my neighborhood look like random seedlings with small fruit grown more for ornamental purposes.

Kaz, yes I can send you cuttings of my tree.  I don’t think it’s different than a typical Big Jim, but it is an old tree and I feed it rock dusts and worm compost.  I typically do not water it during winter, but I did water it in February because we didn’t really get any rain.





Janet

[sc4001992]

Janet, very nice size Big Jim. I think my Big Jim last season was only 63 grams. I can tell from your photo that your fruit is larger than any Big Jim on my tree now.

Of course, my tree may be overloaded with fruits since I have over 100 grafts and 72 varieties. At least half of my varieties seems to have fruits so I will try to take some photos before the fruits are overripe or birds get to them. My fruits that stand out in size is the Pelcuhe, Exotica X-Large, and Imperiale. Waiting to taste these big guys.

[Johnny Eat Fruit]

My Loquat Tree is doing very well with many ripening fruits. I have about 8-9 different types grafted to my tree most of which are the white flesh varieties.

Johnny

Multi Grafted Loquat Tree

[sc4001992]

Johnny, looks nice. Hope the fruits taste great this year.

Posts some photos when your fruits are ripe.

[dnguyen]

These are from the big Jim scions I got from you Kaz. There’s still some on the tree that are even getting bigger.

[sc4001992]

dnguyen, wow those Big Jim looks excellent !!

You got fruits on your grafted branches quick. Hope you like the taste of the fruits. So far I have only tastes a few other orange flesh loquats that is better than the Big Jim. My Big Jim fruits are doing well, some are large like yours other just have a ton of fruits and I get some that are rounder and are super sweet (The Best Ever).

[CarolinaZone]

What in the h*** are you guys feeding those monsters? I had aome Big Jims and they were only the size of a ping pong ball. Give me the mix guys. Are you using anything special? Foliar feeding or particular watering?

[dnguyen]

I think it was just a little over a year since I grafted it. My wife was against me planting it in ground since all the loquat she tasted around the neighborhood was terrible. But I planted it in ground anyways. This year she got to taste the big Jim fruit and she loves it so much, she wants me to graft more lol. I’m still waiting for the vista white that I got from you. I grafted the big Jim and vista white into one tree. Big Jim set the bar pretty high lol.

Loquat tree on far left in the picture. It took off once planted in ground.