Definitely something lost in translation here. ‘Sprite’ is a modern cultivar and a hybrid between two plum species. Your most recent post makes it clear that you are using the term “Sprite” to refer to a whole group of plums called “cherry plums” (Prunus cerasifera). This is causing confusion, but could easily be cleared up if you stop referring to multiple variations of the species under a cultivar name which is intended to refer to only one singular clone.
Those yellow (apparently Prunus cerasifera) plums you posted pictures of look beautiful and productive. That species is naturalized in places here in America as well. I see all the diversity growing in the woods around me with varying tree sizes and fruit, flower and leaf colors.
I’m glad we were able to clear up this misunderstanding. If you don’t want to use the species name, most people here will still know what species you’re referring to if you simply call them “cherry plums” as that seems to be one of the most common English language names used for this species here on this forum.
Yes, that is the clone named ‘Sprite’. “Sprite” is a name used in English to refer to that one clone only. Your posts have made it clear that you did not intend to refer to a singular clone, but rather to the old “mother” species Prunus cerasifera which is usually called “cherry plum” in English because the fruits are small.
Like you I am also interested in cherry plums because they have a lot of useful traits and are also known to hybridize with multiple other Prunus species with fertile offspring resulting
The Sprite plum that I am familiar with is sold by many nurseries in the US. It is claimed to be a hybrid of Japanese plum x cherry-plum. I grew Sprite and Delight but removed them do to poor performance.
I assume the new Topic Title is correct as @JohannsGarden identifies the plum under discussion as Prunus cerasifera. Quick research indicates some named cultivars are Thundercloud, Nigra, Atropurpurea, and Newport.
I agree with @Heldervalente that there is much diversity to work with in breeding cherry plums. I have personally observed a wide range of diversity as follows:
*Lots of variation in size/vigor
*Fruit ranging from yellow to red and purple
*Varying texture from soft and juicy to dense and meaty
*Varying acidity levels
*Wildly varying levels of productivity
*Variation in leaf color - green, purple and intermediate (flower color mirrors leaf color - green leaves = white flowers and purple leaves = pink flowers)
The person i got them from its a Burbank and Zaigers genetics collector in Europe so i will confirm whats the idea about having a “Sprite” in Europe very different than US Sprite, it creates a lot of confusion.
There are all kind of confusions around this “Sprite”
For clarity US “Sprite”
Its not a pluerry and its not the medieval plum i am talking about
Anyway for me the interesting part its the open genes.
I’m currently attempting to cross a purple leaf cherry plum (P. cerasifera) with a late blooming P. mume and also with P. persica. Both of those combos might result in low fertility offspring, but if a hybrid seedling ended up being really beautiful it could get fertility restored via chromosome doubling. Then it could be a dual purpose ornamental/edible. Such hubrids could also be useful as rootstock.
@Heldervalente based on your blog looks like you’re in Portugal. When it comes to europe you can basically consider cerasifera European wild plums. Most comerical plums however are t Prunus domestica, which include Prunes, Marabelles, gages, damsons and several other culinary standards. Prunis Cerasifera (cherry-plum) a normal 2x plum. Domestica arose from the doubling and tripling of chromosomes of cerasifera to 4x and 6x. But because of the hire levels, domestica does not back cross easily with Cerasifera without doubling and tripling the chromosomes again.
Since Cersifera is fully compatible with many other 2x prunus worldwide there have been lots of breeding efforts recently to make improved cultivars.
If you want to improve a Cerasiifera you have to first figure out what your goal is. For example Burbank bread american plum. Prunus Americana with Chinese (eg Japanese) Prunus Salicina for size and texture. Prunus simonii for flavors and back again into Prunus Americana because you want to maintain resistance to native diseases and to get bloom times compatible with American weather patterns.
Now we have a large number of Americanized cultivars compatible (sorta) with our weather patterns. So it might not be a great idea to cross a Zaiger or Burbank to get something new for your region. But follow the same pattern and get species for size like Salicina and a species that pushes the bloom times earlier a later to be more comptable and a species for novel flavors.
Actually, im moving more and more towards kiwis and grapes, this year i did a double up on my collection of those cultivars looking into in the future to try to make something interesting since it takes a lot less time.
Im not an expert on the topic since i dont have much time and im still establishing the food forest system but kiwis just became recently my favorite “mediterranean” fruit .
This year i will try my first fruit of a open polination between plums (eventualy aprisali x dapple dandy) but could well be something else.
Its hard to keep labels of so many varieties, if i move into labels for polinations i wont do anything else.
I also have duck and geese and trouts and so on, so step by step and problably moving forward with open polinations, but kiwis and grapes sounds like a direction also.
Then you’d like knowing the purple leaf P. cerasifera I’m using was a seedling I grew so it’s slightly different from the others that look like it. I grew out a bunch of purple leaf seedlings a number of years back and this one was the most beautiful so I kept it and composted the rest. It set a couple small fruits last year for the first time, but they were nothing special (not bad, just average for cherry plum). This year it’s had a lot of flowers so it’ll be the year to see if it can set a heavier crop or not. Either way, crossing it would produce interesting results.
I am growing Hollywood and mume also and another variety of read leaf also.
Now i have the collection at 90% and can slowly start to play with genetics.
Usualy red leaf cultivars are good for rootstocks
This project of yours can produce amazing results.
The challenge is to get the genes algorithm in position
Hello everyone. Glad to see a breeding thread already exists on this topic and its not horribly old.
It seems like everyone involved is breeding cherry plum with plum. I’m wondering if it would be possible, in my case years down the line, to breed a sour cherry with cherry plum in hopes of leaning the fruit further in that direction. Montmorency is my favorite cherry so if it seems viable I may give it a shot once the plums are blooming.
@coolmantoole My starting point is a cherry plum hybrid. Reading up on them (not Hoops) it looks like sand cherry were the main specimen used in the initial breeding of cherry plums. If sour cherry could be put into the mix I think that would be an improvement.
@randyks now I’m going to have to see if I can find anything on the ploidle issue. It seems like I’ll be giving it a shot just as a “what the hell” sort of move.
