I visited another grower who is working with these guys…he has a collection from NH state nursery, and affirms the variable nature of the fruit-some completely bland others ‘good.’ He has selected one which seems superior in terms of taste and uniform ripening, I hope to obtain summer cuttings and/or seedstock from this one. He is also in a colder spot than I am, and his have never shown sign of winter die back.
I would be interested if anyone else has selected better BPs, either at home or in the wild.
On a recent walk at a ocean front park in Portland, Me, I spotted several clumps of BPS growing not far from Casco Bay- will have to scout these out during late summer! Most likely intentionally planted.
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I did a lot of research looking for named varieties of beach plums and there aren’t many available.
Oikos sells some that are essentially select seedlings. (offspring of plants with good plums) They call these their “Ecos” or “Nana” beach plums.
Raintree has “Premier” and “Jersey” for sale as true named varieties.
I don’t know much about either other than that Premier dates to the 1940s and supposedly has larger fruit of a good quality.
See here for a mention:
Premier photo page 18
Or here for an old writeup: 1949 article
Never found much on Jersey other than that it exists.
The three I planted are just seedlings, hopefully from good parents.
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One last note, either here or for the creating new fruit thread…
Luther Burbank did some work with beach plums, ultimately creating a “Giant Maritima” which sadly seems to be lost to history. Given the beach plum’s desirable traits I am surprised more work hasn’t been done to harness them.
Here is some more general stuff Burbank wrote about beach plum breeding:
I first began raising Prunus maritima about 1887 twenty-two years ago collecting myself and having specimens sent me all the way from the coast of Labrador to South Carolina, the finest of which were obtained from the eastern coast of Massachusetts. Among the seedlings, of which I raised and fruited several hundred thousands, were yellow, red, purple and almost black ones, early and late, round, oval, oblate and flattened, with big stones and little stones, free stone and cling stone, and much variety in productiveness and growth of the young bushes, but not one of them the first two or three generations were very much increased in size probably the largest being about the size of a cranberry or a small hazelnut and none of them of very exceptional quality, though their habit of blooming late was a tremendous advantage, as they invariably escaped our spring frosts. This, with their unusual hardiness induced me to continue experimenting with them. Finally after some ten years I obtained a very delicious variety, about an inch in length and three-quarters of an inch in diameter, tree much increased in size, larger foliage and more productive and producing enormous quantities of most delicious fruit. From this I raised a great many thousand, almost as good and a few of them even better, several hundred of which have been selected and are now bearing on my Sebastopol place. Some of these improved seedling trees grow five to ten times as large as the ordinary Maritima, with larger leaves and in every possible way improved. My greatest success with this species (and one of the most striking occurrences in my work with plums) was produced by pollinating one of the somewhat improved Maritimas with Prunus triflora.
The very first generation, a plum was produced which is an astonishing grower for a Maritima almost equal to the Triflora, with large, broad glossy foliage of almost the exact shape of the Maritima, Maritima blossoms, and fruit weighing nearly one-quarter of a pound each, with an improved superior Maritima flavor, Maritima pit in form, but enlarged. The most singular peculiarity of this plum, which is so enormous, is that the trees commence to bloom about with the Triflora and bloom and bear fruit all summer, so that blossoms, young fruit and the enormous deep red ripening fruit can be seen on the trees at the same time.
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Too bad I can’t get my hands on such a tree today. I imagine it would be very desirable for a backyard grower to have a plum that would fruit continuously all summer.
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Ozymandias,
I contacted cornell years ago about the beach plum program that you mentioned and decided to give them a try here. As you can see by this link they have very impressive results http://www.beachplum.cornell.edu/ . It never panned out here for me though in their climate they demonstrated they are an excellent crop.
Jesse (and others),
I’m wondering if you have an update from this past year on your beach plums.
I did get to try a very few off my own bushes, small cherry sized fruit which were just okay fresh eating. These were golden with a red blush. They find their niche in processed goods, so fresh eating quality is of less concern to me than some other traits. The bloom is noticeably much later than other prunus. I did get my hands on a couple of selected varieties, Hancock and Premier and grafted these onto seedling p maritima and myrobalan, and they took. A visit to a friend who has a row of BP was pretty awesome, his bushes were loaded, and quite variable in terms of fruit color and ripening. One had uniform ripening dark colored fruit and seemed to stand out, hoping to get some material from that one. His site has the sandy soil that BP is probably better suited to than my silty loam. Hoping for better fruit set on mine this year!
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Jesse,
Sounds like a good friend to have!
Beach plums are attractive to me because they can be loaded with problem-free fruit, and resist frosts, diseases, rots, etc.
I have tasted red and blue ones. They tend to be a little sour, but when they are dead ripe, they are pretty good. Better than nothing!
Lee Reich describes the Hancock cultivar as one of the very best for taste. He says Jersey tastes good too. Jersey trees are available at Raintree, and are said to have an orchard-friendly growth habit.
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Matt, are they truly problem free? They don’t have similar maintenance requirements to standard plums?
They purportedly do best if planted in an area where the soil is heavily amended with sand or loam. They don’t like super heavy soils. @clarkinks-- This might be your problem? And a problem I will need to work on…
I know a guy, Jim Davis, who has the world’s biggest pawpaw farm, named “Deep Run” – located north of Westminster, Maryland, near the Pennsylvania border. His property is on a bluff. After begging him on the phone, he let me and my family visit on two separate occasions.
At the bottom of his hilly property, he has two beach plum trees planted near the edge of a forest, in loamy soil. I have seen them twice-- in successive visits to the property over two early Septembers (to sample the pawpaws!).
The beach plum trees are about 10 feet tall - each, the picture of health - and both summers were LOADED with fruits. One has red plums. The other has blue plums. Mr. Davis said they are improved cultivars, but could not remember their names or sources of origin. He says he planted them many years ago. He does not spray them. He shows them nothing but neglect, and most years they reward his abuse by putting out an outrageous fruit load. He says he can’t eat them all-- too many. Can you imagine?
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Michael,
Are you on Matinicus Island? My in-laws lived there for a period of time, back in the 70s. One night, they had the pleasure of their heating furnace malfunctioning. They say it was a cold night!
Ha, Matinicus is waaaay out there. I bet it it really cold with the wind there. No, I’m on Mount Desert Island, where Acadia National Park is. My soil is a medium sandy loam so it should be prime for beach plums. I hadn’t considered them as an option because I assumed they had the same management requirements as standard plums. Now, though, I think I will look for some named varieties to add to my collection.
Had two seedling P.maritima selections here, from OIKOS.
Only one ever fruited… fruits were small, very tart, with just a very thin rim of pulp surrounding the pit. they would dry on the bush… I’d grab a few as I passed on the lawnmower from time to time; tasty, but famine food, at best. That one died out after the neighbors reworked their septic leach field. The other one is still here, though I’ve pulled out most of it. It blooms, but has never set any fruit - I’ve not paid attention to bloom period, but it may just be that it’s not in synch with the nearby Chickasaw plums. .
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The folks at Edible Landscaping in Afton VA told me that they do essentially nothing to care for their Beach Plums and still end up with a good crop each year.
I planted three in 2015. They set a pretty good crop of fruit given their small size but they seemed to be hit pretty hard by Plum Curculios and I picked off most of the fruit and disposed of it. (the rest was carried off by squirrels…) Last year was a really weird cool/wet spring here and that may have thrown things off. I am hoping for a better performance this year.
One thing I can say is that their blooms were particularly beautiful. The flowers started white and then turned a lovely shade of pink.
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Neat article, I need to go down to the coast this summer to forage for bps this summer as I have discovered the locations of area where they naturally occur.
Are beach plums self-pollinating or do they need a pollinator?
I have a beach plum seedling that I bought from Raintree Nursery and it will start flowering next week, and the only pollinators that I have are Maheleb rootstock, St Julien Rootstock, Bing and Rainier Cherries. Will those do the job?
I think the wild ones are self-pollinating. My thicket of Americana is, but it doesn’t always fruit (or have as many flowers as other years). I think that has to do with bearing tendencies more than pollination, although I’m not sure.
Jesse and others, my thicket of American plum makes very tasty little plums, if anyone would like cuttings ever. They are 3/4-1" or slightly bigger, very tasty inside, with very tart but not bitter skin. I eat them fresh and spit out most of the skins and pit, but I plan on making jam!
They bloom later than my J plums, but not as late as beach plums from what I’ve read. They also have fragrant blossoms and attract tons of pollinators. My thicket was planted by birds.
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I think they need a pollinator. I’ll be grafting a wild one this year and hope for the best. First I don’t know if the graft will take and then is it does I don’t know if I will fruit. If the graft takes I’ll and it doesn’t fruit I’ll be looking for another one for pollination.
Here is some info from Cornell: