Opal

There was a time when Opal was the main variety in Norwegian commercial plum production.

Today, its importance has been greatly reduced – and part of the problem is actually that Opal can be far too good at producing plums.

The variety is self-fertile and in some years can set enormous quantities of fruit. Opal is already a relatively small plum, and things don't exactly improve when the tree suddenly starts looking more like a grapevine than a plum tree.

That's when the work begins.

On the worst trees, thinning alone can easily take more than an hour. That's manageable if you have one tree. If you have a couple of thousand of them, enthusiasm tends to disappear somewhere around plum number 700 or 800. :D

Which is a shame, because Opal is exceptionally good to eat. It is sweet, juicy and has a lovely classic plum flavour that has kept it popular for decades. However, it can ripen remarkably quickly, and once fully ripe its shelf life is fairly limited.

Opal is still among the five plum varieties we grow most of, but we are gradually reducing the number of trees. In the future, its main role here will probably be as an important pollinator and as an early alternative to Edda.

And that's where things become competitive.

Edda and Opal are fighting to be the first plum of the season.

Edda is Norwegian. Opal is Swedish. Do I really need to say any more? :D

- Swedish variety and formerly one of the most important commercial plums
- Early – competes with Edda to be first of the season
- Relatively small fruit
- Exceptionally good, sweet and juicy flavour
- Self-fertile and capable of producing enormous numbers of fruit
- Can require extreme amounts of thinning in heavy crop years
- Can ripen remarkably quickly
- Limited shelf life once fully ripe
- Some tendency towards biennial bearing
- Still among our five most widely grown plum varieties, but gradually being reduced
- In future, primarily important to us as a pollinator and early-season plum