Black Sea

'Black Sea', catalogued by NMSU as 'Russian 2', came out of the Nikita Botanical Garden on Ukraine's Crimean coast and was imported to the United States by James Gilbert — the same source that gave American growers 'Sugar Cane'. It is a small-fruited early cultivar built for difficult sites. The tree is compact and productive, the fruit ripens early enough for genuinely short seasons, and the sugar is exceptional at 30 to 33 degrees Brix. What sets it apart from other small-fruited early types is humidity tolerance: UF/IFAS singles it out as a cultivar that produces well as a young tree and does well in wet climates, which is unusual in a crop that generally prefers arid heat. That makes it one of the more interesting options for the Southeast.