Here is what I have of Chickasaw cultivars:
Toole’s Heirloom which is the baseline by which I compare the other natives. Here in Statesboro, GA it ripens in mid June. The fruit has kind of a pineapple / Hawaiian punch flavor. The fruit is golfball size. It suckers profusely and makes a good root stock for other plums. My dad got the original tree that I know about from somewhere when I was a child, but I have no idea where. It’s red when soft ripe, but I like them best when they are gold on one side and red orange on the other.
Guthrie is available commercially through Just Fruits and Exotics. It produces ping pong ball size fruit. It’s a couple of weeks earlier than Toole’s heirloom. The fruit is tart until soft ripe and tastes a bit like peach. It’s a bit smaller tree when grown on Toole’s Heirloom rootstock. It ripens yellow with some orange.
Odom used to be commercially available through Just Fruits and Exotics, but I’m not sure that it still is. It ripens in July and is the latest ripening of the Chickasaw cultivars so far. It fruit is quite a bit larger than Toole’s Heirloom. It’s sweet but not particularly flavorful. It ripens red.
Sonny’s Yellow. I got mine from Brad Harper from Waycross Georgia. He got his original tree from his grandmother who got her’s from an Uncle Sonny. It’s a big golden yellow plum. It’s really pretty and bigger than a golf ball. Like Guthrie its tart but lacks that peach flavor. This tree does not sucker but air layers easily, apparently.
Ridgeland came from a orchardist in Buffort SC. He bought his original seedling from a young girl at an open air market in Ridgeland SC. She told him that the seeds were collected from a tree growing in a roadside plum thicket with really good fruit. This may be an accidental hybrid because the quality is next level from all the others. Were it not for the dull greenish yellow fruit color, this one would be good enough to sell commercially. It’s a very large fruit. The flavor and fruit color and texture reminds me of the few Green Gage plums I’ve had. However, the plums are larger than Green Gage. It suckers profusely. My tree is still very young, but it’s acting like its going to make a big tree. It blooms very early. In fact its the second earliest blooming of my cultivars. It’s acting like it’s going to be very productive.
NC McKibben. This was sent to me by a friend in Mississippi. Of the Chickasaw types, this seems to make the biggest tree. The fruit brown rots really bad in my climate, and non of my other trees pollenate it very well. By the way, the Chickasaw cultivars with only one exception only seem to be polinized well by wild type chickasaw. NC McKibben blooms too late to overlap bloom time with wild type.
Ms Bessie came to me from a guy in Louisiana. I’m getting plums for the first time this year, so I don’t really know anything about the fruit except that the little plums are already bigger than wild type. It’s the exception to the rule about pollination. It appears to be self fruitful. It blooms to late on my property to overlap with any wild type. It overlapped with several chickasaw that had passed their main bloom but still had a few flowers in the tops. It overlapped well with the Delight and AU Cherry Plums. The tree suckers profusely.
Flee Market came from my friend Carl Moher in Pace FL. He got his from a flea market in GA. The vender was selling what looked to Carl like chickasaw seedlings as “apricots”. His trees have not been as intensely cultivated as mine. But we know enough to say that the fruit is red. Mine have fruit on them for the first time this year. It’s the earliest blooming of all my cultivars. The fruit is already larger than Guthrie plums and are still very green and growing. My trees are grafted, so I can’t comment on suckering. They appear to be fairly dwarf trees even when growing on their own roots.
I keep finding strains, but I’m out of space. For those hunting Chickasaw type cultivars, here is a hint that I’ve found helpful. At least here in SE Georgia they are super popular among older African Americans from rural backgrounds. Many older rural African Americans can tell stories about who had good strains. Thanks all.
Will look for it later. [Found it!]