Nadia Sweet cherry x plum hybrid

Hi Brady,

I believe it is a combination of things. The trees are planted from 3 to 5 feet apart for better cross pollination. Lavender is planted near by attracting bee activity. Chill hours are usually very good, 800 to 1100 hours. The property that I am on was agricultural and supported fruit orchards before World War Two. Silicon Valley has covered up most of the surrounding land. This area was previously called “Valley of Hearts Delight” or the “Prune Capital of The World”. The soil is fertile loam and drains well and yet holds moisture, established trees find their own water source. Fruit trees prefer a mild climate, it does not get too hot or cold here. When it gets warm to hot (less than 100 deg. F) humidity is low. Damage from disease or pests to trees is usually very minimal. Birds squirrel and insects usually do not bother plums/pluots/pluerries here, no bagging or protection is necessary.

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Great color looking jam.

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I figured with the late start that mine would be a while in ripening. But I passed by and saw only two left on the tree (one of which was previously undiscovered). Both had plenty of insect damage, since at the point I was spraying I didn’t think it had any fruit-set. I was able to find a tiny bit in one that was edible. But it was overripe and mushy. Interesting flavor, but nothing that made me crazy for more.

All the pics people have posted look so nice. Well, mine is a bit different:

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It’s time to grade my Nadia fruit. From a scale one to ten. I will give it a 7.5.

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I myself am still excited over this fruit. The tree does well here, unlike most pluots. The fruit is decent size compared to the pluerries. It’s not the best fruit in the world, but far from the worst. The anti-oxidants are through the roof. Works for me.
I think the major difference is people were looking for a giant cherry, and I was looking for a good plum that is not your typical fruit. It is meeting my expectations.
Cherries grow exceptional well here, plums do not, hoping some of that hardiness and durability transfer to this fruit. A great fruit for breeding even more interesting plums (not cherries).

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The jam tastes excellent!, better than Burgundy plum jam which is very good. It has a mostly berry, some cherry, taste with a pleasant tang or somewhat carbonated fizz to it. It would be great as a topping on ice cream, filler for a jelly donut or a Nadia pie? Some fruit was put in the blender skin and all. It was poured into a bowl along with 30 to 40% sugar, 1 table spoon of fresh squeezed orange juice along with some pectin. The mixture was heated to a full boil then reduced to medium. About 10 minutes later the mixture starts to thicken, it starts to stick to the spoon. Pour into sterile jar then cover, allow to sit overnight. Watch some youtube videos for more details on jam making…


A very large pancake topped with Nadia jam and some fruit from the garden, yum!


Below are some dehydrated Nadia. It has a berry-cranberry like taste to it. It will become a fruit drying staple along with my dried apricots.

like tart cherries, Nadia is at its best when preserved into jam or dried.

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Wow. All of that looks great.

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My long stem Nadia fruits have good size now but still too green.

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Um… Some of us are not have a chance to taste Nadia fruit yet, still waiting, waiting… You already had Nadia jam, pie, dried fruits… Not fair at all Rich.:angry:

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Not that big of a deal… We just have a different season. Some eat Flavor King now, i eat them in Sept… no biggie. Waiting isn’t all bad.

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How beautiful are your Nadia fruits now Brady?
We are waiting for your next long stem Nadia fruits tasting report.

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There is only one hanging on.A (squirrel?)ate part of one and that finally fell off today.There was some color,but still unripe.Hopefully the remaining fruit can make it through. Brady

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You should bag it for safety Brady. Mine dropped 1 as well. It also a lot of squirrels and windy every day.

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I ate my last Nadia yesterday although a bit overripe. I had a lot this year so shared with family and friends. The overall consensus, good fruit, not great, but a keeper as it is quite different. Deep red flesh has both plum and mild cherry flavors. Kind of sweet/tart like Fruitnut reported. Some described it as a plum with a cherry aftertaste. The problem is it’s a mild cherry flavor, if it were more intense it would much better, but it’s definitely there. My tree gets over 12 hours of sun and we get hot weather which probably helps with the flavor. I did notice it took a while to fully ripen. We had more rain than usual this spring so the fruits sized up large. This is not ideal as they probably could have been better with less water. Mine were best at 19 to 20 brix, getting to soft at 21. This fruit has met my expectations, I’ve never seen or expected a 90 gram cherry. If you are looking for a large cherry try Utah giant, Selah, or Tieton. Ten people helped with evaluations, nobody disliked just wasn’t incredible, only one person reported no cherry flavor but she doesn’t eat much fruit anyways. I will be keeping this fruit around!

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90 grams, wow water does make a huge difference. Mine were 30 g at best. I’ve grown 15 g Selah cherries. I’d much rather have 10 gram Bings than 30 or 90 g Nadia.

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I could not agree more, hard to beat a good Bing cherry! The one Nadia I got last year was probably about 40 grams with an average rain season. I usually don’t have overwatered fruit but this year is very different. Very poor fruit set in general for almost all my fruit, it never stopped raining during bloom. We are also about 2 weeks behind last year, was not a very sunny spring here.

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I tested one fruit that dropped to the ground today at 20 brix. The tree gets partial afternoon shade from a huge pepper tree next door. It has not rained measurably around here since mid-late April, the tree has not been hand watered watered since then.Some of the really ripe fruit become water logged for some reason too, not good for eating.

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I don’t like them overripe either, they get mushy and are not good. We got more rain than you this spring but I think the size of my tree and full sun helped pump the size up as much as available water in my soil. Your dried Nadia looked good, great idea! I look forward to trying Candy Heart later this month, hoping its as good as you reported, it sure looks promising!

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You should make jam out of the mushier ones, it tastes really good. When some of my apricots get too mushy they get dehydrated (dried) or can be made into jam. If there is not enough time, they get cut up, frozen, then processed later. There is nothing wrong with them other than being too watery. Fruit needs to be preserved somehow otherwise it goes bad and gets thrown out, what a waste.

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Thanks Rich, your jam looks great! I don’t process jam but I do sulfur/sun dried apricots,nectarines, peaches,plums, pluots, and pears, often with my overripe fruit… I also make a lot of fruit leather with sweet pluots, figs and pears. No sugar added to any of my preserves. I will post a killer recipe for flavor king, fig, and pear fruit leather later on this season with no sugar added. So good!! The sulfur/sun dried fruit is a family tradition. As kids we would u pick 250lbs of royal blenhiem apricots evey year in Tracy Ca. We dug pits out and sulfered under ground and then proceed to sun drying above ground. A lot of fruit gets eaten fresh here as that’s when its best. If I have extra waste it gets feed to our chickens which devour fresh overripe fruit. I may try some Nadia dried next year if I have extra, thanks!

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