Dave Wilson Nursery
Dave Wilson Nursery is the largest wholesale grower of fruit trees for the home garden in the United States.[1] A family-owned and -operated nursery established in 1938, it is now a corporation. It is one of the largest growers of deciduous fruit, nut and shade trees in the state, farming more than 1,000 acres (4.0 km2) on a four-year rotation, growing more than two million trees a year. Its growing grounds are east of Modesto, California near Hickman, California, and its regional office and variety test block are situated east of Reedley, California.[2]
According to the 2005 San Francisco Chronicle article cited above, the nursery holds about 40 tastings of its fruit each year in different towns. Writer and nursery expert Geoffrey Coffey said of one such tasting:
- We sat at long tables with white linen and our first course arrived: a handful of blueberries on a paper plate. We sampled five plates of anonymous berries in rapid succession and ranked them for sugar, acid, texture, attractiveness, physical maturity, ripeness, and overall flavor. My tongue was soon stained deep purple and my understanding of "the essence of blueberry" forever complicated. The fourth berry we tasted, later identified as "Reveille," topped my list for its firm texture and those stirring bugle riffs of flavor. But I found most amazing the sheer differences in size, texture, and taste between the various cultivars.
The nursery, says its website, is the primary licensee and propagator (in the United States) of new fruit varieties developed by Zaiger's Genetics, including the Pluot and the Aprium.