Salavatski (pomegranate)

[alanmercieca]

Spring 2013 we planted a cultivar of pomegranate called 'Salavatski' which was propagated by air-layering, the 'Salavatski' bush that the air layering came from originated from http://ediblelandscaping.com, and our air-layering was about 2 years old at the time of planting.

‘Salavatski’ is also called 'Russian 8', 'PI 483121', 'DPUN 62', and 'UF 26'.

This improved cultivar was named after the 'Salavatsky District of Russia', at some point the 'Salavatski' cultivar had become popular in the 'Salavatsky District of Russia', the cultivar name is often spelled 'Salavatsky'. This cultivar is said to have originally been from 'Afghanistan', yet I have seen no actual record of this.

This cultivar was test grown in Russia at the 'Kara-Kala Turkmenistan Experimental Station', that 'Experimental Station' collected a cutting of 'Salavatski' for their experiments on 'May 11th 1976', that cutting was collected from somewhere in the 'Former, Soviet Union', most likely from a farmers field 'since it was a cultivated cultivar at the time', this fact made Salavatski's ties to Russia even stronger.

That 'Experimental Station' donated cuttings of 'Salavatski' which were imported to the USA 'by the USDA' on January 1982. Every cultivar that the 'Experimental Station' helped to import to the USA was labeled as a Russian pomegranate, regardless of their original origin. A few Months after the cuttings of Salavatski were imported to the USA a 'Turkmenistian' government officially took full control of 'Turkmenistian', this event took place about 8 years after 'Turkmenistian' gained it's independence from Russia.

It's very cold hardy, to at least -8 degrees Fahrenheit '-22 Celsius', might be more cold hardy than that. Some strains of this cultivar have a sensitivity to April/May frosts.

The peel's color is like that of a yellow onion, with the following colors taking over, pink, red, yellow, brown, the peel can even have a slight/weak greenish tone to it when ripe, when fully ripe the peel might just look dark purplish brown, at least in our climate they can, technically the fruit varies in color from fruit to fruit when fully ripe.

It's fruit is small to large. It's crimson-red arils provide a somewhat transparent garnet red juice. It's arils, juice and flesh have a very good sweet-tart balance, has a very good sweet taste with little acidity. The fruit tastes like sweeter than cranberry cranberries with a red wine like texture, yet when perfectly ripe that cranberry flavor is very sweet and is accompanied by a citrus flavor that is sort of comparable to a blood orange, yet the citrus flavor is unique. Fruit is resistant to cracking. Fruit starts to mature early October. This cultivar is high production. It's seeds are hard/harder than normal hard, and they contain an excellent pomegranate seed oil.

The smaller the pomegranate fruit the less sweet the fruit can get when fully ripe, even an over ripe fruit with some rotting arils can be sour and not sweet if it's a small fruit, I opened a tiny blackish-purplish brown looking ‘Salavatski’ fruit, it looked so over ripe that I thought the arils must be all rotten on the inside, a few were, yet most weren't, I opened it, and even though it was the one with the second darkest arils, it was the one that was the most sour as well, yet it tasted like the fruit with the lightest arils. Fruit can crack open before getting sweet enough also.

One of the first to flower, in early June. Oddly for us we have seen flowers on this cultivar as early as the 'first week of April'.

This cultivar is a strong grower, that can grow to about 3 meters high, about 9 3/4 feet high, and about 2 meters wide, about 6.6 feet wide.

This cultivar has been grown in Georgia since the 70's.

The strain of 'Salavatski' from http://ediblelandscaping.com does have a sensitivity to mild April/May frosts, yet not very sensitive to it.