Thanks Scott,I’ll be looking for any differences. Brady
The only thing that disappointed me this year was the asian plums. Half the buds didn’t even swell. I still had lots of flowers, but the fruit set was poor. Most of the fruitlets turned yellow and dropped. I could still get all I need, depending on losses from here.
The heavy set on nectarines and peaches is a welcome change. It’s been a few years since I’ve had to spend any significant amount of time thinning them. Even the peach buds that started swelling in Januray seem to be unscathed. It’s interesting that peaches buds might be hardier than asian plums in this respect.
I was out thinning today, in preparation for spraying. I prefer to not be in the trees for a while after spraying, so I figured I should thin first.
It’s nice, but it really made me recognize that I’ve let the tree get too tall. I took this picture while standing on top of a 6’ ladder. Donut peaches are harder to thin and spending so much time on the ladder (and still not reaching some), gave me a new picking idea. When the time comes to harvest them, I’ll use a saw to cut the top 5-6’ off (could be 8-10’ by that point). That would still leave the tree 12’ tall. Then I can pick them off the branch while on the ground…
The cold slightly over-thinned Satsuma and Geo Pride, leaving just a few on Toka and Flavor Grenade (really hoping those make it). And none at all on Flavor Supreme, Nadia, and Mariposa. But the rest are pretty full, like this example.
Thinning some of my Euro plums will be a bit painful, as they are clumped together near the ends of the branches. This is the first time I’ve had enough Euros to thin, but from what I gather online 2-4" is the usual spacing.
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The timing is right, but the peaches might get bruised when they hit the ground. [quote=“BobVance, post:275, topic:9536”]
Thinning some of my Euro plums will be a bit painful
[/quote]Mine set heavy too. Looks like I might finally get enough to stockpile dried prunes.
Better than me getting bruised when I hit the ground 
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Bob, you’ve seen my trees- peaches work better in a quite horizontal construction. I used to rely primarily on pruning to outward, more horizontal shoots, but now I accomplish the first 5’ of horizontal growth of a scaffold by tying branches down, although it is more time consuming. Once you let a peach tree get too tall it is often impossible to bring it down in height.
One thing this year demonstrated to me again is that bloom is no guarantee of fruit set. At some sites J.plum blossoms were destroyed entirely and the buds are still black reminders of Febs lows. But often it appears only the ovaries were destroyed and a full bloom didn’t lead to a full crop, even though the bees were quite satisfied with the pollen the damaged blossoms produced.
This was a year when dawn to dusk sun was a disadvantage to the earliest blooming species because the buds of these trees were slightly further along than partially shaded locations when our severely abbreviated winter finally arrived.
Bob,
My 3 Euro set for the first time this year and set well, too. Castleton sets in bunches, some in clusters of 6-8 plums. Very painful to thin, indeed. I may ignore the 2-4" per fruit rule and follow the 2" loosely.
I will thin by size instead, keeping large fruit that are next to one another and removing smaller ones in each cluster.
Do Shiro plums have a pointed end when they were young? I could not remember since the tree did not set fruit last year.
I know when matured they are round yellow fruit. Right now, my Frankentree Shiro plum bears a lot of plums from various varieties, all with pointed ends.
Sorry that I missed your question. I think that we got down to about -10 but we had no extended periods of extreme cold like past winters.
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It is difficult to thin enough when trees are small but plum trees on Myro soon become so big that it is easier to bite the bullet. I believe that leaves that serve the fruit need to be pretty close to that fruit, I also think the flow of sugar is towards the roots, so the leaves have to be upriver from the fruit being served except for spur leaves immediately below. If an apple requires thirty leaves serving it to achieve high quality I figure for plums it’s about 10, depending on the size of the plum. Castleton is relatively small- so maybe it only needs about 6 well exposed leaves to serve a single fruit. I do know that touching fruit tends to be attacked by insects and rot.
This is not a subject there is a lot of research on and there are a lot of potential variables, including intensity of the sun, number of cloudy days during development (uh oh!), relative sun exposure of site and openess of the trees themselves. I actually do quite a bit of pruning when I thin- it is the most beneficial time if you are trying to keep light on the leaves serving the fruit. It is also clear at this time when two shoots are taking the space where only one is needed. Higher old shoots without fruit are only a liability but if you wait until summer to remove them it is too late to do the crop much good. For apples it is likely too late by then to influence cropping the next year. Now is when trees tend to decide if they have enough energy to ripen fruit AND invest in flower buds for next year. All this cloudy cool weather is not helping them store energy either.
I don’t even know if commercial growers thin plums- never seen any articles about in in trade publications I’ve read.
This tree is actually plenty big horizontally as well- maybe 8’ in row and 10’ wide. I planted 3 peaches at 4’ distance and its neighbor on the South (PF1) mostly died and had it’s space taken. So, even without the top portion, I’ll be fine with the size. In fact, it may be too much if I don’t find a way to keep TangO’s from rotting- 2 sprays of MFF last year weren’t enough. I know you suggested Indar, but I haven’t been able to find any at affordably online. I may try alternating Immunox (labeled for brown rot) and MFF.
Some don’t- one of the guys at the farmer’s market was saying that they don’t thin them any (he’s not the one in charge). But, their Castleton are often OK (not great) and their Stanley are pretty bland. With last year’s frost, there was an enforced thinning and the Stanley were actually better than Castleton. But I want my plums to be better than that so I’ll need to thin. And they aren’t huge established trees, but as you point out, the ones on Myro are on their way there with 3+" trunks.
Yeah, I’m a bit concerned about all the cloudy weather as well. But I think we’re set to get some sun later this week. I think it has been good weather for grafting- not too hot, not too cold. Last year got hot so quick I wasn’t able to finish up successfully. I just did my last couple dozen grafts yesterday. Now, the only thing I have planned is possibly a few more persimmon, which are fine with the warm weather.
Same mode of action but Immunox just doesn’t work for BR. Try Captan- I’d just use it in the same mix with MFF if isn’t working alone, but I wonder if you are getting adequate coverage. At least Captan gets spread around when it rains (not too hard). It’s very important for fruit to be fully exposed to the sun- summer prune for that. Make sure there’s no touching fruit also. A spreader-sticker may also be helpful.
In research, Indar is not all that much better than the active ingredient in MFF which I would purchase as Orbit.
Thanks for the warning. I just checked the label again and while it says it works on brown rot, it also says to re-apply every 7-14 days, which seems pretty frequent. In comparison, the MFF label says 21 days.
Good thought- I haven’t used one in any of my sprays. Another contributing factor could be that there were a lot of bite holes in my fruit last year, as I had only sprayed a very insufficient amount of Surround (or Spinosad- I don’t remember which I did last year, but whatever it was, it didn’t do much). Those bites are starting points for the rot to start and it spreads quick.
Alan,
I talked to @scottfsmith last weelk about E plum fruit setting. My trees are Castleton, Mirabelle Parfume de Septembre and Coe’s Golden Drop, planted in 2014.
This is the first year they all fruit. Castleton and Parfume set like crazy. I mean their fruit setting rival my A pears. Coe’s set moderately so no thinning needed.
My trees are planted in poor soil. The advantage they have is the location. They are in full sun and are not cramped together (yet). Scott thinks the amount of sunlight they get is very beneficial to them and probably helps with early fruit production (for a Mirabelle at least).
I wouldn’t rely on the label because efficacy of a product may be marginal but they can put it on there anyway as one of the pests it is effective against. That’s why I keep up with what is working in commercial production. No one in the business uses myclobutanil for anything but blossom blight (earliest stage BR) on peaches anymore.
Yes, the peaches I manage are usually clean, but even when brown rot is in the fruit I’ve been able to arrest it with Indar- MFF should do the same thing, but once every 3 weeks won’t do it for cracked or damaged fruit. You may need to spray it so it is active right up to harvest as I have to do with cracking cherries. That means the week before harvest. The cracks open and the fungicide can’t protect the exposed interior.
I saw Penn State lists Indar to have 14 days PHI on apples.
Other U. say 30 days on berries like cranberries and blueberries. Not sure about its PHI on stone fruit.
That’s probably because there would be no point in spraying apples that late. For peaches it is up to day of harvest- at least in NYS. You can always find labels on-line. Just google the name of product, comma label. It’s just a couple clicks away.
@alan Do you have any experience with Pristine (pyraclostrobin/boscalid)? It is too bad the OTC product from Bonide is mixed with an insecticide. The big jug is kind of pricey. But Pristine is rated very good for apple summer diseases. I haven’t looked into if it works for brown rot or not.
Yes it works as a fungicide for brown rot well, but you are essentially buying two patented fungicides in one package- therefore the high price. Only one of the fungicides is actually effective on brown rot, boscolid. It is crazy that boscalid is sold as a single active ingredient fungicide for vegetables as Endura but it is illegal to use it on stonefruit- for that you have to purchase Pristine and spray your trees with a duo that has only one that is effective for them. That is profit over reducing unnecessary environmental disruption it seems.
Don’t rely on Winesap as a pollen source: triploid by most accounts. Still great apple to have for cider and sauce and pies and fresh from the cellar into May!
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