inquiry

[thinkingman]

hi there

i'm a pigeon farmer in british columbia canada.

been looking at using our 5 acres out back for commercial fruit production. have an active farm market opportunity.

can someone help me with cost of putting in an orchard of pluots, time to bearing on citation or st julien root stock, and a range of lbs per acre production with price of fruit/fresh market/farm gate.

i have gorgeous soil. 30-35 inches of sandy loam on top of clean sand with water table at about 6 feet below surface. land is drain tiled, we get about 68 inches of rain a year. i have about 20-25 tonnes of great pigeon guano for fertilizer i'm just north of bellingham... so maritime moderation in the winter.

can't find anyone growing pluots around here, and plums grow well up here.

thanks in advance.

[evergreen]

Well, I am an amateur, but since no one else has responded, I'll chime in. First of all, your soil sounds great and I'm envious. There are some wonderful growing areas near the Fraser River in BC--too bad so much of that land south of Vancouver has been developed.

With pluots, my understanding is that they generally do not grow well (at least, they have not yet been proven) in areas that cannot grow apricots. They may be subject to some of the same spring frost problems. Plums are much more adaptable. So even if you can grow plums successfully, the question is probably whether anyone near you can grow apricots successfully? I know that there are some cots growing in the Okanagan Valley, but am not sure you have the same climate where you live. Where apricots thrive, so will pluots. Where cots don't thrive, pluots are experimental.

I would recommend contacting Raintree Nursery in Morton, Washington, which sells trees that are adapted for Western Washington's climate and should succeed in yours. They have a website at www.raintreenursery.com which should list phone and e-mail. Raintree also sells Dave Wilson trees, including some pluots. They are very frank in their catalog that not everyone in the region can grow pluots, though there are one or two selections (Dapple Dandy is one) that apparently have proven more adapatable than others. So you might check with them for more info on whether this is worth considering. And then either they could get you some trees or refer you to a supplier north of the border.

You could also check with someone at Agriculture Canada, BC Agriculture and Lands, or UBC for more info. Down here in the states, we have folks in each state and region who are connected with the universities and it's their job to determine what crops are worth growing in each area (though they tend to be quite conservative about their recommendations where something has not been fully researched). You may have some similar advisors there at one of those institutions.

Best of luck to you!