Mixed Marriages
Don't call these fruits mutants, clones, frankenfruits or - heaven forbid - genetically
modified. Hybrid is more acceptable. The industry prefers that you think of them as exotic. The director of specialty fruits for Kingsburg Apple says it takes about five years to bring a new fruit to market. Kingsburg, located near Fresno, CA, is a major producer of hybrids. The process: a plant - a plum tree, for example - is cross-pollinated by hand with pollen from an apricot tree. The seeds that result are planted. Trees grow from those seeds and bear fruit after a period of years. There could be hundreds, all different in some way. The most promising fruit are then propagated from cuttings.
Kingsburg has 30 to 35 hybrid varieties and releases a couple of new ones every year. Other hybrids include: mango nectarine - this fruit is a cross between two varieties of pale nectarine, no mango involved. It is named for its texture and flavor, which the producer, Ito Packing, says blends both fruits. A peacharine is 50 percent peach,
50 percent nectarine. It is darker outside than a typical peach, but pale inside, and has very little fuzz. The flavor is a blend of the two fruits and usually quite sweet, although the early season fruit is tart. A nectacotum (neck-tah-cah-tum) is one-third each nectarine, plum and apricot. The hybrid, now in its third season, is large, dark and smooth- skinned, with dark, plum-like flesh. (The Star-Bulletin via Agnet, 7/7/04).
