Is that one Plum/Pluot,that was misidentified,whose fruit had a mottled appearance,still growing?
Yup, you won the price for trees with black knot magnets.
That’s too bad to hear about pluots being prone to black knot. I like pluots more than plums.
Can you tell us more which pluots to avoid?
How bad black knot Spring Satin gets?
The graft of your misidentified pluot that @Bradybb is asking about, finally died this year. It never produced any fruit as it was too cold sensitive and suffered bud kill every year.
I had black knot problem on my plum tree in the past, not severe, just here and there. I cut all infected branches off and monitor the tree branches very closely. I didn’t find any black knot this year. knock on the wood.
Your area is likely to be less humid than the east coast. Also, some varieties are more prone than the others.
Mirabelles had no black knot for the first 5 years. Then, it started and has rapidly multiplied. Luna Sensation and Indar which stop brown rot does nothing to slow down black knot, unfortunately.
Sadly, it is not. Black Knot finally took it over completely and killed it. I really loved that Pluot (it seemed to have been called Dragon Tears from what I saw on some commercial Pluot sites). However, as @mamuang said, it bloomed insanely early and therefore I only got fruit about 1 out of every 4 years. In fact, it was ALWAYS the very first tree in my whole orchard to bloom- sometimes in mid February! So I shouldn’t morn it too much.
@mamuang I think pretty much every pluot I’ve had - probably 6 or 7 total- have been very prone to get black knot with just one exception- and that is the one you mentioned…Spring Satin. But Flavor Queen, Flavor King, Flavor Grenade, Dapple Dandy and 3 others I can’t remember now have all gotten and eventually been killed my BK. Spice Zee doesn’t get it (I know its a nectaplum) but it is so prone to brown rot that few fruits make it to ripe. Like you, I love this interspecifics more than plums but they have all been a little finicky for me. I love Spring Satin but again, its a magnet for insects and brown rot both,
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Thank you for your input on Black knot susceptible pluots. I will avoid them no matter how much I like to grow them.
For my plums, Vision and fake Valor are quite resistant to black knot. Everything else have gotten it including Elephant Heart.
I’ve had somewhat better luck with plums. I’d say about 1/2 mine get it. Also, some of my plums get it but it is controllable- ie I can cut it out once in a while when it shows up and its managable. Santa Rosa is one like that. But most times if it hits a tree, its just a matter of time. It may take 3or 4 years to actually kill the tree, but eventually it will. I lost my Morris to it this year after a 4 year battle and I’m really sad- I loved that plum!
I should be ashamed to post these since I CLEARLY didn’t thin some AT ALL…I just ran out of time. Still, its fun to see a tree this loaded even if the fruit will be small and sub-par due to over-production.
Don’t judge me too harshly for the lack of thinning. I have several trees which I did thin and which have large fruit!..
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I am extremely envious
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Too bad that I did not take pics of my plums so loaded branches touch the ground and fruit have no leaves because bunnies ate all the leaves.
My pics would have made you feel better because your your trees and fruit suffer no damage from bunnies. I had to removed those fruit with no leaves.
This was the only pic of fruit with noleaves.
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wow!!! Looks like I’m not the only one who hates thinning! ha. But those are nice, large fruit. What type plums are those?
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We are so behind on tasks in the garden. Thinning don’t get priority. So next year will likely be a light year for plums and apples.
The plums in the pic is a Japanese plum. I thought it was Early Magic but I am not sure. It is a good, large, juicy plum and is on an early side. When they ripen, I will post and see if anyone could identify it.
Just curious…your first paragraph above sounds like you are saying that because you didn’t thin a lot this year, you expect a light crop next year. Am I just misinterpreting what you are saying, or are you suggesting that there is some correlation between thinning this year and the crop you will get next year> IE, are you saying that failure to thin this year will cause less fruit to set next year?
Just curious because I’ve never heard that or experienced it, but maybe its true??? Or I’m misunderstanding you>
I have had plums, pears and apples go biennial on me regularly. I had loaded mirabelles last year, barely anything this year. I had no J plums last , way overloaded this year.
Honey Crisp apple is notorious for biennialing. Many apples are if I don’t thin them very well.
Peaches and nectarines don’t suffer biennialing like plums or apples, in my experience.
This is a well known fact for some fruit varieties, some apples for instance. I believe it also depends on the length of the growing season, and how much time the tree has to recover after harvesting a heavy crop.
You may be right, but they can fail to produce good quality fruiting wood for the next season. I have had a nectarine tree produce only weak, short branches in a year following a heavy crop.
I have never not thin my peaches and nectarines. However, if I thin 50% off my peaches/nectarines, I still have full crop of the fruit the following year.
If I thin 50% of my apples off, I am likely to have them bear little or skip a year in the following year. It happens to more varieties than I can remember. In fact, I remember the ones that bear quite regularly like Calville Blanc d’Hiver, Golden Russet, Lodi.
20th Century Asian pear has gone biennial on me if I don’t thin 70-80% of the fruit off. Korean Giant does better. It has not gone biennial but will produce noticeably less following a productive year.
I am surprised Kevin never experiences biennialing. Ahmad is probably right about the length of time fruit trees need to recover. My zone 6 is a lot shorter growing season than Kevin’s in TN.
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Tippy and @Ahmad I had no idea this was a thing. I was aware that some trees produce heavy crops and then none or light crops the following year, so I knew biennial was a thing, I just didn’t know it was related to not thinning enough! I myself have some pears that alternate from heavy to light crops but I don’t usually thin those pears at all so I’m doubtful that is the cause on mine. My pecans do this, too. I had a GREAT crop last year and almost none this year. Oh well.
It sort of makes sense that I didn’t know thinning was related to biennial cropping since Tippy says it doesn’t seem to apply to peaches. Honestly I’m not really into my apples as much and so I pay a lot less attention, but I was pretty sure my peaches never do this.
OK, thank you both. Just goes to show I never stop learning!
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You can do a fun experiment and thin one of your biennial trees one year to see if it will bear fruit the following year or not, but make sure you thin well 
.
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Kevin,
I did not know that you did not know 
BY not thinning or not thinning enough, it could result in biennialing of fruit trees. My experience has been apples, pears and plums. Here is one of the articles about thinning.
Interesting. I certainly knew the importance of thinning in terms of fruit size, limb breakage, even increased sweetness. And I knew lots of trees can go beennal. Just didn’t realize the link there. good article, thanks.
And thanks for giving me another reason to feel guilty when I don’t thin or don’t thin enough!!! hahaha. It is such a huge job for me. Not only do I have around 135 trees now, but many of them are huge. Even peaches…I have about 10 peach trees that are probably 20 feet tall and have a diameter of 30 feet from branch tips through trunk to other branch teps. THining one of those can take 3 hours easy… But the difference in fruit size alone is just amazing. Right now in my orchard I have 2 trees of the same variety, age, and size. One I thinned well and the other barely at all. The peaches on the thinned tree are honestly 3 and maybe 4 times larger than unthinned tree! So I’m a believer in thinning, just not for biennial reasons… thanks, for this
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