That’s an awesome update. Thank you.
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What is the best way to start chicasaw plum from seed? I was gifted some seeds this week that I plant use for rootstock.
I’m learning myself when it comes to this.
Greetings all. I have the next week off and will probably transplant the plum suckers that I plan to keep this week. I have enough Mariana and Toole’s Heirloom to give some away. Let me know if you want one. First come first serve.
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PM Sent
Sending PM .
Oooh pick me! Pm sent
@coolmantoole sent me a Toole’s heirloom sucker last year which grew like crazy. Once I decide how to prune it, I’ll have a little scionwood if anyone wants some. I’ve also got plenty of Odom and Guthrie chickasaw plum scionwood.
In my case Toole’s Heirloom suckers are really limited, but scion is nearly unlimited. I summer pruned some of the lower limbs off my tree after I harvested the last of the fruit because they laid on the ground with the weight of the fruit. The tree has responded by sending out numerous water sprouts that need to be pruned off anyway. I’m pretty sure that a grafted tree will produce a lost faster than a sucker. The Guthrie I grafted into a Toole’s Heirloom sucker this spring already has bloom buds on it. That’s three years faster than I’ve ever gotten a Toole’s Heirloom sucker to bloom. There is definitely something to be said for a grafted tree. The advantage of a sucker is that the tree is on it’s own root and will propagate itself through suckers if something happens to the main tree.
Greetings everybody. I thought that I would update you all on a point of progress in my effort the find regional varieties of Chickasaw plums to add to the collection at the Georgia Southern Botanical Society. About a year ago I mentioned that I had learned that a local African American family here in Bulloch County bread plums, apparently for generations since slavery days. The family name is Bouie, and they were mostly around Brooklet Georgia. Anyway, this weekend I collected scion from two different trees can be definitively traced back to that family. One is a red plum, and the other is a yellow plums. The man who has the two trees got them from his yard man. The yard man, Pete Houston, got his trees from John L Moore who was related to the Bouies by marriage. Do L. was the most recent breeder of the plums.
Neither the man who owns the trees that I had access to, nor the yard man remember which tree produces the red plums, and which produces the yellow ones. I suspect that I have an idea based on bark color. But we won’t know for sure we get fruit. For now I will be calling them both "Bouie Plums, but once we get fruit, the red tree with become Bouie Red and the yellow fruited tree will become Bouie yellow. According to Mr. Houston, the fruit on these plums are a little bigger than a quarter which is much smaller than Toole’s Heirloom. But I’m glad to find plum trees directly linked to the Bouie breeding project. God bless.
Marcus
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I just collected plum scion today. I have a little Guthrie, a little Odom, a tiny bit of Dot Piaza, lots of McKibben, lots of Robusto, lots of Toole’s Heirloom, lots of Mariana and even some Mariana. I’m looking for scion from a Munson plum, especially a good one. Thanks.
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Hi Marcus- I haven’t read the entire thread here but want to make sure you’ve seen Gary Nabhan’s detective work re: native american chickasaws that they cultivated near their villages. I have the book referred to in this article, worth getting, a treasure trove of rare heritage foods. Please read this short article and let me know if that presents any new avenues for you in your search: Reclaiming the Chickasaw Plum – Mvskoke Country Or maybe you saw that long ago. Love what you’re doing. Steve
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Thank you for this. I sure wish I could track down some of these super old varieties from the early 19th Century, but McKibben comes the closest to having that sort of history intact. I just found Dr. Nabhan’s FB page and sent him info on what I’m doing and asked if he could offer any advice or leads to scion of some of these old varieties. Thanks and God bless.
Marcus
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Excellent. So glad you’re tapping him for leads. Please let us know how it works out.
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Great work. Looking forward to the updates.
Here are my first cultivated chickasaw/hybrid plums of the season. On the left is Robusto, on the right is Guthrie. Similar flavors, the Guthrie slightly sweeter and peachier. The Robusto probably would have benefitted from hanging on the tree a couple of more days, but nothing that color survives the birds/squirrels/possums for more than 24 hours.
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Your Robusto looks completely different from mine. Mine looks a lot more like that Guthrie. Did you get the scion from me? God bless.
Marcus
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Yes, I did get that scion from you. I wonder what explains the difference? They did have a lot of similarities-size (that’s a nickel, not a quarter by the way), interior color, and flavor. As you pointed out in Purchasing plum trees for the first time - #23 by coolmantoole the plum curculio didn’t bother it much, in fact not at all on this first small crop, which is a huge plus as the curcs really like both guthrie and odom. Next spring or perhaps this fall I’ll cut a scion and graft it to create another tree, using one of my local chickasaws as a rootstock.
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The Guthrie plums are really ripening now. Brix 13 to 17. Productive, despite hard frosts during bloom. Some cracking due, I suspect, to the several days of heavy rain we had last week. Very juicy. Great flavor. Brown rot much better this year, only affecting some cracked or otherwise injured fruit, probably because I picked up every drop the day it dropped and I sprayed Captan twice early in the season. Tree extremely vigorous, having been “summer” pruned in early May and needing it again. No black knot or other diseases. Plum curculio a problem, but not as bad as on the peaches, even though I only used one Malathion spray on the plums., compared to two on the peaches. I tried with pretty good success to selectively thin the fruitlets affected. No black knot, again.
I really believe people anyone in this area who is interested in growing stone fruit should grow this tree. I will have plenty of scionwood/budwood if anyone’s interested.
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Nice report. Late cold weather got all my Guthrie along with most all my other varieties.
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