The Complete Handbook of Plumcots

Chapter 1: Understanding Plumcots

Every year in late spring and early summer, a produce buyer receives a load of fruit labeled simply "plumcots." The cartons are the same size as plums. The fruit is roughly the size of a large plum, round or slightly oblong, with skin that ranges from deep purple-black to red-blushed gold. The first thing the buyer does is cut one open. If the flesh is amber or light yellow, clings tightly to the pit, and the fruit has a flavor that is distinctly more aromatic than a standard plum, with a sugar content that reads between 16 and 20 degrees on a Brix refractometer, then this is a plumcot in the commercial sense. If the flesh is pink or dark red, or if the fruit tastes simply like a very sweet plum, the label may be inaccurate. That discrepancy is not a small matter. The price per carton, the intended display position, and the customer's expectation when they bite into the fruit all depend on what the fruit actually is.

The term "plumcot" refers to a first-generation hybrid between a plum species (Prunus salicina, the Japanese plum, or Prunus cerasifera, the cherry plum) and an apricot (Prunus armeniaca). Historically, this cross was difficult to achieve and often produced low yields of poor-quality fruit. Luther Burbank, the American horticulturist, worked on such crosses in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and is commonly credited with creating the first stable plumcot lines.