Instructions: These trademarked fruits - genetic crosses between plums and apricots - were introduced by Zaiger Genetics of Modesto in the early 1990s to make plums attractive to a wider public. Theyre basically plums with the firmer flesh and milder skin of an apricot.

Pluots, which range from a mottled green Flavor Supreme to a deep purple Flavor Heart, have become so popular among California growers that they are now at the center of a controversy over whether they are a strain of plums or an entirely separate fruit. At stake is the 20 cents per box that growers are now required to contribute to the state tree fruit marketing board for promotion of plums - but not pluots.

To settle the debate, a panel of UC-Davis scientists is testing the genetic makeup of pluots.

No one tracks how many pluots are sold each year, but the marketing board estimates as much as 20 percent of the states formerly 560 million-pound plum market has been captured by pluots along with plumcots, which are half plum and half apricot, and apriums, which are more apricot than plum.

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