Champagne Loquat

Eriobotrya japonica 'Champagne'

fruit

Champagne is a favorite home loquat, grown for its yellow-skinned, white-fleshed fruit with a sweet-tart, juicy flavor often compared to a blend of peach, apricot, and citrus. Loquat has an unusual rhythm that makes it valuable: it flowers in fall and early winter and ripens its fruit in late winter to spring, filling a season when little else is in season. The tree is a bold, handsome evergreen with large, deeply veined, tropical-looking leaves and fragrant flowers, hardy enough for warm-temperate gardens well beyond the true tropics, and equally at home as an ornamental shade tree or an edible-landscape centerpiece.

✅ Plant alongside

Good neighbors that attract beneficial insects or deter pests

• Comfrey — A deep-rooted nutrient accumulator ringed at the drip line and cut for a rich mulch
• Bulb flowers — Spring bulbs like daffodils planted beneath add early bloom and do not compete with the trees summer canopy
• Clover — A low living mulch that fixes nitrogen and protects the soil under the tree

🛡️ Pest & disease prevention

Proactive ways to stop trouble before it starts — tap a name with an arrow for its full guide

• Fire blight →

  The main loquat disease, a bacterial infection that blackens shoots - prune out strikes well below the damage with sterilized tools, avoid heavy nitrogen, and choose less-susceptible types

• Caribbean fruit fly →

  Bag whole fruit panicles and harvest promptly to keep maggots out of ripening fruit

• Scale →

  Treat stems and leaves with horticultural oil and prune out encrusted wood

• Pear scab →

  A fungus that spots leaves and fruit in wet weather - prune for airflow and remove fallen debris

🌾 Harvest & storage

Grafted loquats bear in just 1 to 2 years (seedlings take 6 to 8 and may not come true). Fruit ripens in late winter and spring, roughly February through May. Pick loquats only when fully colored and slightly soft, because they do not ripen further off the tree; clip whole clusters, then snip individual fruit. Handle gently - the skin bruises easily. Ripe fruit keeps for a couple of weeks bagged in the refrigerator and is excellent fresh, in jam, or poached.

🥗 Nutrition & benefits

About 47 calories per 100 g with 1.7 g fiber, a very high 1,528 IU vitamin A (from carotenoids), 266 mg potassium, and some vitamin C. Loquats are low in calories and refreshing, eaten fresh or made into jam, jelly, and poached desserts.