I grafted some Plums last Spring and didn’t ID one of the scions.The wood looks like Beauty,which is another cutting that is growing nearby,but the branches have a lot of fairly good size thorns,while the real Beauty doesn’t have a single one.Can some trees do this,with thorns on some limbs and none on others? Thanks,Brady
Brady,
The wild plums here are thorny. The thorns of some of them like with pears dissapear as they get older. One of my domesticated pears have thorns until they are 5 years old. Frequently people report that with jujube as well. None of the Japanese plums I got from Bob Purvis ever have thorns. To your original point yes certain branches of plums can be thorny while others are not even though they are the same variety. At least that is true of wild plums. Maybe someone that grows that variety of plum can tell us more about it specifically.
[BUMP]
I was taking the net off my Methley today when I saw it was snagging particularly on one sprout, which was covered with one-inch thorns. It was well above the graft union, and the rootstock was Raintree’s “peachwood”, which I don’t believe to be thorny
I found another of the thorny sprouts, but the rest were normal.
Cut them both off, do not want, but I suppose they’ll grow back with thorns.