Chickasaw Plum Inventory

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Robusto on the bottom right, Guthrie on the left and center. The flash on the phone is reflecting off the moisture on some of the Robustos, giving them the appearance of some sort of white coating.
Robusto has been productive, cracked little, and tasty. It’s larger than the Guthrie. The Guthries have ranged from ok to excellent. We’ve had a lot of rain this year and many of them taste watery. This issue hasn’t affected Robusto. Guthrie also cracks more than Robusto and isn’t as big. I also should have thinned the Guthrie more. I let it set too many which no doubt isn’t good for the taste or size, though I removed hundreds of plums from a small tree. Overall I’d say I like the best of the Guthries more than the best of the Robusto, but the Robusto has been more consistent with very few bad fruit.
Plum curculio well controlled on all trees with zeta-cypermethrin (Sevin). Huge improvement over using Malathion last year.
Minimal brown rot despite lots of rain and not very open pruning. I used alternating Captan and Bonide Infuse. Definitely a big improvement over the past couple of years.
A second and larger wave of aphids is currently attacking the Guthrie and Odum. I’ve seen some ladybugs and I’m hoping they’ll do the job.
It looks like the ripening order for my six plum trees is going to be Robusto, Guthrie, Guthrie or Odom seedling, Toole’s Heirloom, Japanese seedling, Odom, with a good bit of overlap between them-the Robusto is almost finished and the Toole’s Heirlooms are almost ripe.

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They all look good. Thanks for the report. My Guthrie and Odom were very good this year. No fruit on Tools Heirloom yet.

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Great report. What was the fruit like on the improved Chickasaw seedling? Is it worth spreading around as a new cultivar and it’s own name?

Marcus

Probably pretty good.

It’s hard to believe it’s a chickasaw from the looks of the tree or fruit, so perhaps I mixed the seed with something else I collected, but I really don’t think so. The tree has reddish brownish greenish spotted leaves, the fruit is a dark burgundy. Good size and flavor on the fruit. Maybe it’s a guthrie/odom crossed with cherry plum, prunus cerasifera, which is very common around here.

I will definitely send you some scionwood because I certainly would like some other opinions. If it starts putting out suckers I’ll also send some of those. The tree has grown from a seedling to fruiting in just 4 years, and it’s very vigorous. No diseases yet.

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This is the second account I have heard of Guthrie producing purple leafed seedlings with burgundy fruit. There is a new ornamental cultivar from Alabama that started by a seed from a Guthrie growing in a botanical garden. My understanding is that the garden allowed some kids to pick the Guthrie plums under the condition that they bring some of the seeds back. They planted the seeds and ended up with several seedlings that looked like chickasaw plums and three that were red or purple leafed. That patented it and it’s being distributed as an ornamental. It seems like I or someone else posted an either further up on this thread or in another thread on this page.

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The Purple Chickasaw variety I’m referring to is called purple pride. My hunch is that the botanical garden had some purple leafed P. caricifera on the property. But it may well be that Guthrie is a P. caricifera hybrid. That would explain the super high fruit quality and the super tiny pits relative to the size of the fruit for a Chickasaw.

Here is the link to the article about the purple leafed Chickasaw cultivar called Purple Pride: Prunus X ‘Purple Pride’ – The Very First Purple Leaf Plum With Native Genetics | Dave Creech

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Would Chickasaws perform any better in Maryland than an Asian plum? Better than Euro?

They are just generally more disease resistant. However, they tend to have very low chilling requirements and may tend to bloom too early up there. Someone who is growing it in a colder climate would be better qualified to answer that question than me.

I had no idea about that Alabama purple leafed seedling. Here’s a couple of pictures of mine, one showing a typical leaf and fruit and the other showing new growth. IMG_20200624_181255498 IMG_20200624_181434310

The fruit in the picture is not ripe-it will get a shade or two darker. I’ve had some nearly ripe off of this tree, but usually the birds and squirrels get after them just before they ripen.

I’ve got two other seedlings that are in the ground but not fruiting. One has languished for a couple of years barely surviving before putting out a lot of new growth this year. It’s leaves look very much like Toole’s heirloom leaves. The other looks like a native chickasaw, and certainly suckers like one. It bloomed heavily this year but set no fruit for unknown reasons.

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Beautiful! I would love to give it a home. Is it showing signs of being productive? I know that purple pride isn’t. Thanks.

Marcus

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I tried for years, with several different European and Japanese hybrid plums… but only Chickasaws would ever manage to produce fruit that made it to ripening without being consumed by brown rot.
Only have Guthrie and a couple of local native Chickasaws - a red and a larger, yellow-fruited variety. that I transplanted from a roadside thicket and my cowpasture. I’d consider grafting other Chickasaw varieties into my existing thicket, but don’t think I’ll ever bother trying another Euro or Japanese type.

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Signs, yes, but nothing definitive. Last year (3rd in the ground) it had a few blooms but set no fruit. This year it bloomed heavily and set about 35-40 fruit. The pollination situation is good but not ideal, with a purple leafed, a japanese seedling, toole’s heirloom (which bloomed lightly), and two native chickasaws close by. A grafted Odom is also near and will probably bloom for the first time next year. I’ll be transplanting a Guthrie and a Robusto to the same location as soon as possible. It appears that Robusto is my best pollinator out of all of them.

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The red leaf plum seedling looks very similar to my Hollywood plum grafts. It would be great if you have an edible ornamental that is adapted to your climate. I hope you get a good harvest without sour/bitter skin.

Got a friend in Pascagoula Mississippi dug up a small wild plum in his yard and gave me today. The plums have just been picked. He had some in refrigerator, they were bright red while more mature plums were dark red. They were small, about 1 inch or so in diameter. They were delicious but the skin was bitter and thick. Made me want to spit the skin out. Inside was a dark yellow and very juicy. He found the trees growing along side the road, dug them up and planted in his yard. Uploaded pictures of his trees. Those trunks are about 8 inches in diameter and they are about 12 ft high. They sucker a good bit, he’s always given them away. He said everyone calls them a possum plum cause the possums are always in the trees eating plums. Doesn’t know real name.

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IAW with this page i recieved a chickasaw plum tree. The fruit in the picture matches what I saw and ate. The leaves match exactly in the description.

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I got a Guthrie from them [Mail Order Natives ] and still waiting for a Odom which their out of stock and have been for a while. I also have a Byrongold Plum from JFE and they say it will pollinate the Guthries. We’ll see. If you know of any others that will pollinate Guthrie please let me know. I don’t want to wait years later to discover Brrongold ain’t doing the job. Rumors have gulf beauty and gulfrose might pollinate Guthrie. I guess it’s worth a try.

Friend of mine gave me some Gulfbeauty and Gulfrose sion wood. I’ll graft them in soon as it gets warmer.

That Chickasaw I got died so its not available for pollination, lol

A late freeze wiped out most of my plums and peaches this year. The Toole’s heirloom grafted to my native chickasaw set very well, but the one on it’s own roots about half a mile away, was covered with blooms and has only a handful of fruit. About 1 degree colder there than where the graft is. Guthrie, Odum, Robusto, the native chickasaw, the red-leafed seedling (which had set a lot of fruit) all have only a handful left.

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My 2 Chickasaw plum seedling are blooming for the first time. I am trying to pollinate them with Flavor Grenade, Toka, and Candy Heart. I have no idea if they will set fruit, but this warm/dry weather can’t hurt.

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I’m sorry for your loss. I am encouraged to hear that the purple Guthrie seedling tried to bare a large crop even if the little plums got yacked by frost. That bodes well for the future. I’ve taken to calling the strain “drag queen”. The one that I have is really turning into a beauty. Other than having purple leaves, it looks less like a hybrid to me than Guthrie does. Anyway, it’s quite striking, and if it turns out to be productive and disease resistant, it should turn into a big seller for the home nursery trade. I can tell that this is going to be a very pretty tree.

Marcus Toole

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