The second, V-shaped cut was from a branch. So it looks way worse and deep than it really is. I have the tree well supported on two sides. I’m going to leave the tree supported for at least a year now. I’m really hesitant to round it out more. I’d prefer to let nature take its course have have the tree scar up there.
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@njgrower. Thanks for this post. When my plums get black knot I believe that after reading all the suggestion I will know how to take the corrective action needed. My thanks to the posters as well. Bill
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I’ve got black not on one of my large Red Heart Plum trees. I had pruned it all early on as well as sprayed it with copper and other fungicides really heavy. It is too the point that I can’t control it as it is too large to work over and over run with BK. I wanted to prune it down to large branches and graft on to it with some BK resistant varieties however, at this point it looks like I might have to cut it up and burn it.
Is there any thought about cutting it back at this time of the year really hard almost to nubs and graft on to it? Hate to lose this tree it is a really good tasting plum.
Thoughts…
I have been pruning out black knot out of three plum trees for two weeks now. They do not seem to mind. Also sprayed with MFF. Seems to have helped, so far.
If it weren’t so tall and widespread, I’d probably continue to cut out. At this point I think the poor girl is going to be firewood. If MFF is a silver bullet I would love to drench it…
If you don’t have a lot it can infect nearby I would just let it go this year and chop it off at a few feet above ground next spring and topwork something else to it. If it could infect other things just lop it now. Japanese plum are very good at making shoots from older wood, my big Santa Rosa I topworked this spring keeps trying to send up new shoots from the 6" wide trunk.
I decided to file down the V-shaped cut. I really hope the tree scars up before winter. It sounds like Santa Rosa might be more susceptible to black knot than I originally thought. Santa Rosa is marketed as a somewhat black knot resistant variety.
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Thanks Scott, big winds lastnight blew a tree down beside it… too bad it didn’t get the plum… would of solved my problem. 
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