The only one I have heard of has been Vietnamese Red. You may want to try out these varieties (got the info from the CRFG website http://www.crfg.org/pubs/ff/pomegranate.html)

Francis
Originated in Jamaica via Florida. Large, sweet, split-resistant fruit. Prolific producer.

Wonderful
Originated in Florida. First propagated in California in 1896. Large, deep purple-red fruit. Rind medium thick, tough. Flesh deep crimson in color, juicy and of a delicious vinous flavor. Seeds not very hard. Better for juicing than for eating out of hand. Plant is vigorous and productive. Leading commercial variety in California.

Considering both originated from Florida they may produce decent fruit in South FL. Francis looks like the better selection of the two.

The Vietnam Pom tastes good to me. Has a milder flavor than Wonderful. I find the kernels to be very hard and not chewable. I chew the Wonderful though. To me this distracts from the overall value, though if you were juicing the fruit it would be acceptable. I have the following growing in Central Florida:

Vietnam
Azadi
Wonderful
Cranberry
Mejhos
Cristina
Nikitski ranni
Zebejda
Gissarskii Rozovyi
Kaj-acik-anor
Russian 8

I would say that the Vietnam is probably the most vigourous growing but they are all growing well. I do have sandy unfertile soil and not limestone. My personal opinion is that the humidity does not effect the growing as much as it interferes with pollination. That said, I did have fruit set on most of these cv's however I removed all the fruit from the tree's with the exception to the Vietnam, to give another year of growth.

I have a friend with 10 pom cv's that are about 10 years old. He probably gets about 20-40 fruits from each tree annually.

jb

There are none that I know of that do well this far south. From what I've been told, the wonderful basically produces a crop every 7 years or so this far south. The vietnamese is your best bet, as it produces regularly. However, it's nowhere near the wonderful in terms of quality. It's decent and gets a little better as the tree gets older, but you may be better off just buying them from the store unless you have the "I'll eat anything" palate.

Jeff

No, I'm definitely not in the "I'll eat anything" group. I was attracted to the small size of the pomegranate bush/tree, but there are so many wonderful tropicals to grow in this climate that if pomegranates are marginal at best I think I should pass on them. Does that make sense?

I buy the fruits at Costco and use the orchard space for something worth planting. In my oppinion, pomegranates in Fort Myers, is a waste of time and resources.

So I'll just forget about pomegranates, probably plant carambola instead, which isn't a favorite fruit but sure does produce bumper crops around here! What's the best carambola, that takes it to another level?

Carambola is a fantastic winter fruit. There was a study done in which various growers were asked to rank a dozen or so cultivars based on flavor, and Kari/Kary came out to be the winner with b-10 coming in 2nd and fwang tung tied for 3rd. It's also my personal favorite. It has a good balance of sweet and tart and is also very juicy. The tree is also smaller than some other cultivars.

Jeff

Sounds like a winner! Thanks,Jeff. Merry Christmas.