Meritare plum trees

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• Picking season: Early
• Self-fertility: Not self-fertile
• Flowering group: 3

An attractive new early-season dessert plum from Sweden, similar to Opal, with large fruits and good cold-hardiness.

Meritare plum trees for sale

Meritare is an attractive new early-season plum from Sweden, and can be considered an improved version of the popular Opal plum - which is one of its parents. It has a similar or better flavour, and the fruit-size is much larger.

It is also a good choice if you are looking for an early-season plum to grow in colder climates.

How to grow

Meritare is reasonably disease-resistant, and cold-hardy in all UK situations.

Meritare is considered too light-cropping by many commercial growers, but for the gardener this is a good thing - lighter crops often mean better flavour, and larger fruit size.

It is a good pollinator for many other plums, damsons and mirabelles, including Mirabelle de Nancy, Avalon, Belle de Louvain, Victoria, Cambridge Gage, Farleigh and Shropshire Prune.

Advice on fruit tree pollination.

History

Meritare was developed in the 1980s at the Balsgaard research station in southern Sweden. It is a cross between an American dessert plum called Ontario, and the well-known Opal plum from Sweden. (Some authorities state incorrectly that it was developed at the INRA research station in Bordeaux, France).

Meritare characteristics

Similar varieties

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  Opal
  Opal is an early plum variety with a good flavour, self-fertile and very easy to grow.