The UC Davis chilling hour listing at http://fruitsandnuts.ucdavis.edu/chillcalc/index1.htm gives my town of Riverside 239 hours, pretty typical for us. All my stonefruit is low-chill and the fruit set is heavy. The Minnie Royal cherry tree has a decent crop, but not its pollinator Royal Lee. As usual all the apple trees are having heavy blooms, as they are quite reliable in our climate whereas in the mountains it is iffy because of late frosts.

Applenut

The numbers for Santa Clarita can't be right. We have had a cold and rainy winter. My rainier (not royal) is listed as 700 re-planted this year has cherries growing on it. I just planted two Royal Rainiers about 6 weeks ago from bare root so they didn't blossum but have many leaves and about 8 new branches about a foot long or so each.

So far my Katy Apricot, Cot-N-Candy Aprium, Santa Maria Plum and Dapple Dandy Pluot are all bearing a lot of fruit. I thinned most of them down since they were planted from 6/09 to 12/09.

I contribute a lot of it to the extra chill hours here which I estimate around 450 in the north end of Canyon Country.

Applenut, I noticed the opposite on my low chill cherries this year. Royal lee is loaded, but the pollinator variety mini royal is aborting most of its crop. Same with royal Lynn, which I consider the most delicious of all the three. I suspect they may be alternate bearing because last year, all three trees were loaded, and we had less chill last year.

Enjoying this thread and nice to know we all live in Southern California. My closest stone fruit producing area is Banning and Beaumont. I love to go there and pick their fruit on the "U Pick" orchards in the summer. I'm in Riverside County, but in the Coachella Valley, where grapes, figs, pomegranates and citrus grow free and wild, but no stone fruit. One of our big winter crops here is Artichokes. We get very few chill hours. You could count them on one hand, we get so few!

Greenwitch, I have nearly the identical experience to yours this spring with my peaches and plums. According to the UC Davis site I am not exactly near any of the reporting stations, but I'd guess that Long Beach is my closest climate and they only got 322 chill hours...so my Santa Rosa Plum should have at least set some fruit, but it is bare this spring! very disappointing. Meanwhile all 3 peaches are loaded. At least we know there are pollinators in the area to do the job. I will check with my neighbors to see if any of their backyard plums set.

I am west of the SF Valley in Simi Valley. Mid-Pride/August Pride/Bonita, Desert Delight, Desert Dawn, Sugar Lady, Snow Queen, GoldMine, Saturn, Giant Babcock all are full of peaches/nectarines.

Now Flavor King has 3 pluots, Emerald Drop 0 pluots, Beauty 6 plums, Santa Rosa 6 plums, Methley a ton of plums, Elephant Heart 0. Emerald Drop Flowered before everything, Methley was next, then Flavor King, Beauty, Santa Rosa and then Elephant heart. I am thinking about getting a Burgundy or Flavor Grenade to help and or graft plums to my pluots.

Peaches and Nectarines seem much more productive and consistent then Plums and Pluots. GoldKist Apricot is full of Fruit and my Bleinheim is a younger tree but has a good amount of Apricots on it.

Apples I only Dorsett Golden and Anna with fruit at the moment. Anna only had 1 apple take, it did have an aphid problem and a lot of rain while it was flowering, the Dorsett Golden flowered in the middle of the Anna Flowering and has about 10 apples for a 3-4 year old tree. Pettingal, Gala, Pink Lady are now flowering.

Lapins are flowering well, but only one of my two is setting much fruit. I think my next purchase will be Royal Lee and Minnie Royal which have less chill requirements.

If you are ever in the Camarillo/Somis Area check out Jon's Nursery off Lewis Road, Jon knows his stuff and carries a ton of different fruit trees that will do well in our area. I was there today asking about why my plum/pluots did not produce much.