@Vincent_8B you are correct about where Brookgold’s name comes from. I am an hours drive south of Brooks. They “released” both Brookgold and Brookred as “Japanese” plums. Brookred has long been discounted as a hybrid. Brookgold not so much so. Most of our “Japanese plums” on the Canadian Prairies come from a bunch of imported seeds in the 1930’s. Think Ptitsin and Ivanovka. It is said they came from Manchuria - north east China. I once read an article that said they came from the permafrost of south east Russia. Think Kamchatka on the old risk board. Brookgold was one of the first plum trees I planted. I harvested several crops, none of them were gold and none were pleasant to eat. They were yellow till close to harvest and then turned red in colour before being soft enough to eat. There are many versions of this story on the Canadian prairies. There are a couple who liked their red coloured brookgold. In the past @alan has questioned whether we can actually grow true Japanese plums here and he may be right. In my opinion all of the “Japanese plums” we have bred on the Canadian Prairies are not varieties because they do not remain true to type. Think Brookgold, Fofonoff, Hardygold, Sprouts Sunshine. I know a lot about growing grain and cattle. Please feel free to critique my limited knowledge of fruit trees.
I bought one from Lowes a few years ago here on the east coast. Out here the tag looks just like yours, but only says gold plum. Looks like there may be some issues with the Brooks part. Mine set some fruit this year, so maybe I will find out.
@chinook thank you do much for detailed information. It’s very interesting about this plum. Sounds like they have some different varieties with too closed names. I think I just take time and wait how it turns out on mine and will update info here. A lot Japanese plum won’t set fruit in my areas. Hopefully we have a good one . Please update the fruits this year for us. Thank again.
@Robert post pictures here and let us know how it tastes when possible please. Thank you for info Rob.
Your knowledge seems fine to me. Plum genes due to most not being self fertile, need pollen from a different tree. Which makes the genes unstable. Once you find a good seedling you propagate by cloning. Most commercial fruit trees are grafted clones on a rootstock. Sure people like to plant seeds. I do it myself! With great results too! But how your plums act is no different than any other plum. None come true to type. A few peaches do, but most also do not come true to type. Peach seedling make good rootstock. I trade plum scion all the time. At one time I had 21 different plums. I’m down to 10 or so now, maybe more? Never counted them.
So we propagate by cloning via grafting scion on rootstock. Sometimes as a whole tree, sometimes as a scaffold. I do both. All my trees have multiple cultivars. I only need a scaffold or two of any one variety. I try to have fresh fruit all growing season so want to put it examples that ripen at different times. I freeze or dehydrate any extras to get me through the winter.