Adara (Puente) Plum - Fruit tree, rootstock & interstem

With fall upon us now I am happy to report that the results for my experiments with Adara this year have been good. The Adara grafted on almond put on 6’-6" vertical growth measured from the top of the scion. The spread of the tree grew to six feet.

Regarding the tiny double grafted tree in the first photo of this thread, I planted it out in late spring. It grew to be exactly 5’-0" tall. Caliper is about 3/4" diameter at the plum trunk area and over 1" at the Lapins graft. Photos:

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Dan,

Any chance I can buy some of the Puente scion woods from you? I have a few plum and peach trees that I want to convert over to Cherries. Please let me know. I am in San Diego Area.

@brittanyw @Vohd @Dennis1 In case you still have interest, I have some sticks of Adara to share. Please send me a PM with contact info and how many sticks you need.

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This is neat!
If you have a few extra I have some myro rootstocks and I need more sweet cherries. I would love to try this, and perhaps try to stool it for more future rootstocks. We are quite alkaline here so it sounds like it would be a good way to go.

I don’t think this website allow me to PM, yet. As I am still a new user. I can not find a the pm function on this website. This is my throwaway email account that you can contact me and I can provide my mailing address. Anhdinh@yahoo.com

I’m interested.

All those who have interest in scions please send me a private message with all of your contact info and how many pieces that you need. Last year my cost was running about five to seven dollars per package which can be reimbursed through PayPal. I have enough scions for a few more people.

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@danchappell I live in San Jose and would love to buy some (2 or 3) of your Adara scions to graft this Spring.

I just came here from a Google search and don’t have permission to PM other users yet. Could you please send me a PM?

Can Adara be used as interstem to convert Cherry to plum? I have a couple of mature cherry trees (White Gold and Lapins) that I wish to convert to European Plum varieties.

@JoeReal,

I thought Joe used some kind of cherry rootstock for his 150:1 multi grafted plum varieties.

Tony

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It can be used like that but it is incompatible with some cherries, and some plums.
Not much info, the most info i found so far is here. It does list some cultivars it is compatible with or not compatible.

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If I recall correctly Joe used an existing street tree that came with the house that he bought. It is an ornamental purple leaf plum commonly used for landscaping in California urban areas. Although these trees are usually prunus cerasifera they are also frequently referred to as cherry plum due to the fact that the size and color of the drupe often resembles the appearance of a sweet cherry.

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Most of the literature talks about converting Plum to Cherry. I am wondering if it is possible to go the other way. Plums do way better here than Cherry and I can buy excellent cherries at the store while it is nearly impossible to get high quality plums other than growing them.

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Give it a shot and let us know either way!

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The article I linked showed the wood was compatible with many plums, and even peaches, but it seemed hit and miss with peaches. I got some wood from Dan and I’m going to put a couple pieces on cherry as a source to harvest more in the future. But I want it to put Euro plum on Asian plum trees. So I will graft some pieces on Asian plum. If they don’t take I have the cherry grafts to try other trees. I will eventually try all my peach and plum trees and see if I can get takes. Any takes I will graft Euro plums there. I would like to grow some gages and French desert plums.

I see it i compatible with Santa Rosa So I will put a piece on that tree to make sure I have a take somewhere!

If it can go one way it can go the other way too. It’s either compatible or it’s not. Doesn’t really matter which way you’re going. Not all plums or even all cherries are compatible. So one must experiment and find which trees will work. I have White Gold and they did not test that tree, so it could be incompatible with Adara. I want to use the cherry as a host for Adara to harvest more Adara in the future. I have multiple other cherries on it, so no plans to convert the tree.

Hello Drew,

are you aware of this very interesting discussion some years ago?

Reading all the experiences with grafts of E.plum onto A.plum and vica versa you might not even need an interstem. There were some reports about incompatibilities but they seem to be exceptions.

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Yes, I tried it with scion of interest and it didn’t work. It took and grew, then failed to thrive. I should though do more experiments as you say I might need it in all circumstances. That would save a year too… I want an option of placing it on say a peach tree. I have more peach trees than plum.
What are the rootstocks used with Euro plums? I have Myro and Marianna I think? If they ever sucker, I was thinking maybe I could use as a rootstock for Euros too?

Hi Drew I wrote this about a year ago and addresses a lot of questions. It needed some editing to get it all squared away but it’s correct:

As far as marianna goes, I’m no expert but from what I remember reading, this appears correct:
image

Dax

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Thanks for the info!

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Here the standard still is St. Julien A. It has very good compatibility to all E.plums and is somewhat dwarfing (70% vigor vs. seedling). It is used also for peaches and apricots. But there are more and more voices that suspect problems when using it for peaches and apricots. With peaches and apricots winter tree losses are higher on St. Julien A than peaches and apricots on peach seedling or apricot seedling. Therefore I dont use plum rootstock anymore for my peaches and apricots. Plus St. Julien A is somewhat demanding in regards of the soil quality. It doesn’t like sandy and dry soils.

Another St. Julien plum for rootstock is St. Julien GF 655/2. That one is suckering and I wouldn’t choose it over St. Julien A.

In newer field tests another E.plum rootstock proofed to be superior to St. Julien A in regards of survivability. Its called Wangenheim (propagated by seed) or WaVit (propagated by tissue culture). Especially WaVit has very good compatibility to all E.plum and even to apricot. Its only drawback might be it even is a little more dwarfing than St. Julien A.

Myro is another good rootstock for E.plums with high vigor. It has compatibility issues with some varieties of E.plums (eg. many Gages) and with some varieties of apricot. There are selections of Myro with better compatibility, Myro 29C might be one of them. I have no experience with it.

Brompton is another plum rootstock (prunus domestica) for E.plums and peaches with high vigor.

An old-timers choice for E.plums are seedlings of Green Gage. This rootstock has the vigor of a seedling but is trouble free as far as I know.

And then there are prunus tomentosa. They can be propagated from seed and are very much dwarfing. There are hybrids from prunus tomentosa as a more recent rootstock for E.plum, eg. Weito Klon 226. I don’t know much about them. I sowed some to test them as a rootstock.

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