Best Fruit Crops for North Texas

On Sunday, February 1, we devoted my entire two hour radio program on DFW-based WBAP to fruit and pecan questions. Click to hear podcasts of both hours of the program. My guest, as has been the case for the past 32 years on that same date, was Texas A&M fruit and pecan specialist Dr. George Ray McEachern.

Each year Dr. McEachern has prepared a list of what he would consider to be the very best choices in fruit varieties for a home garden or landscape, and here is his list for 2015.

These varieties won’t all be available at any one nursery. Your local independent retail garden center would be a good starting point.

Womack’s Nursery in DeLeon, Texas, sells by mailorder, and they have almost all of Dr. McEachern’s recommendations. For four generations, Womack’s has worked closely with TAMU horticulturists to provide commercial growers and home gardeners varieties that will do well in the Texas climates and soils. www.womacknursery.com

Dr. McEachern’s Variety Recommendations
(starting with the most dependable):

1.   Orient pear
2.   Methley plum
3.   Quachita blackberry (thornless)
Kiowa blackberry (thorns, but highly productive)
4.   Eureka persimmon
5.   Champanel grapes
6.   Celeste figs
7.   Caddo pecans
8.   Peaches
From Waco and southward: Junegold
From Waco to DFW: Harvester
From DFW north into Oklahoma: Red Globe
9.   Black Beauty muscadines (acidic soils only)
10. Tifblue blueberries (East Texas only)