Description
Al-Sirin-Nar is a heavy-bearing pomegranate for climates that can finish a late crop, filling out glossy red fruit with large red arils and lively sweet-tart juice.
The bush is precocious and productive, but the fruit ripens toward the end of October. A warm, dry autumn is what turns that heavy set into ripe pomegranates rather than unfinished fruit.
The fruit is medium-large, not oversized, and the seeds are hard. A circulating 0 F hardiness figure and a berry-flavor note are not established for the cultivar; the dependable facts are yield, late timing, glossy red color, and very good slightly tart juice.
Overview
- Ripens late October, which is the late end of the genus.
- The heaviest cropper of the Russian selections, in both southern records that rate it.
- Precocious as well as heavy, so the crop arrives on a young plant.
- Glossy red fruit, large arils, sweet-tart and rated very good.
- Hard seeds: a juicing and preserving cultivar.
- Its record notes resistance to fruit sunburn, which none of its siblings carries.
- One of three cultivars under study in north central Texas for surviving typical winters and still cropping.
- Self-fertile.
Growing Details
Latin Name: Punica granatum ‘Al-Sirin-Nar’
Origin: Collected in the former Soviet Union in 1976
Site and Soil: Full sun, the hotter the better; any free-draining soil
Hardiness: USDA Zones 8 to 10; protect below about 10 F
Size: A vigorous multi-stemmed shrub of 8 to 12 ft, trainable to a small tree
Pollination: Self-fertile; one plant crops alone, and a second variety does not improve set
Ripening: Late season; October into November
Fruit: Medium to large and glossy red
Arils: Large, red to rosy pink
Flavour: Sweet-tart, and rated very good with a slight tartness
Seeds: Hard, which puts it in the juicing and spitting half of the genus
Bearing: Precocious and heavy
Note: Its germplasm record carries an observation none of its siblings has, that it resisted fruit sunburn in Georgia
Additional Notes
- Grower’s Insight: It crops heavily but ripens late; gardens that freeze before late October may not finish the fruit.
- Regional Insight: Late October ripening suits the low desert, southern Texas, Gulf South, and inland southern California.
- Explore more pomegranates in the collection: Pomegranates
