Attended the VERY LAST of the USDA-ARS sponsored Pomegranate Tasting at Wolfskill Experimental Nursery that's open to the public (due to funding cuts by the Bush administration) and here's my personal notes:


By joereal at 2008-01-31

Pomegranates have been becoming another interesting adventure. I'm on the tail end of my harvest for this year. Actually I should have picked them before our recent rains because the fruits are splitting. I picked about two 5 gallon buckets full of Wonderfuls and a couple of Russian #8's last week.



Tasty arils!

(the Susquehanna paw paw and keraji's in the background were good too)

Thanks for the taste test results Joe. I put my accessions request in recently with some of your results in mind. I currently have some of the soft seeded varieties such as Angel Red, Sin Pepe, Fleishman, & Eversweet but am still waiting for fruits.

Those are excellent looking arils! Congratulations!

How long did it take for you to shuck each fruit? I can do a 1-lb fruit in about 2 minutes without getting stained.

There will be another Pomegranate tasting this coming November 8, 2008. I will post a thread on this.

Eyeckr, is your Wonderful Pomegranate growing out side, and if so what is the lowest winter temperature it went through? My in ground (greenhouse) Wonderful Pomegranate tree is also in fruit. I have been picking them as I eat them, and as time passes they just get more and more red. I really do not know how long they can be left on the tree before the begin to deteriorate. - Millet

I'm not as fast as you are Joe. Me and the kids took about a 30 mins to process what I picked. Great news about the tasting continuing this year. I loved reading about the results in the Fruit Gardener.

My Wonderful is planted in the ground outside and suffered tremendous dieback when it experienced 12 degrees a few years ago. Being a bit more established and mature I think my tree could handle that temp better now. I too am not sure how long it would keep on the plant as I try to pick them all before all the freezing weather sets in. When picked and refrigerated they keep for a very long time though.

I can teach you how to do it quickly without a drop of stain in your clothes. When it is time to make pomegranate wine, I'll shuck some and hope can upload a youtube video of the process.