Chickasaw Plum Inventory

Well heck, I didn’t realize they were the same old American plums that grow everywhere in the ditches. The names cultivars look so much bigger and better than our tiny ones.

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On the issue of will Guthrie and Odom pollinate each other, I did get a light fruit set. They bloomed very heavily but still had a light set. I did plant a couple of wild chickasaw so maybe if they bloom next year I will get a heavier set. Both Guthrie and Odom have been vigorous growers, getting about 8 feet tall and wide going into their third year.

I think the pollen of the wild strains is much stronger than with the cultivars. By my experience with plums so far is that young trees often have poor fruit set their first time blooming even if they bloomed profusely and had an ample pollinizer. My question about your Guthrie and Odom is how well did their blooms overlap. I got very few Odom blooms this year, but the scion started blooming before Guthrie, and overlap wasn’t great.

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The cultivars are huge in comparison to the wild strains. The fruit is the size of golf balls and the trees typically get well over 20 foot tall when allowed to. It’s rare for wild ones to get much taller than eight feet in my experience.

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I’ve seen a few really tall ones but very few. Is there a good source to buy scion from in the winter?

Please remind me and I’m glad to send you scions of guthrie and odom and robusto. I have to heavily prune all of them to keep them down to 7-8 feet tall.

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I’ll try to remember, they definitely sound pretty interesting.

They overlapped about 50%. I will say I have had a hard time getting any plums to pollinize. Peaches set much better for me. I had gulf beauty and gulf rose bloom right next to each other and got no set from gulf rose and very few on the gulf beauty that is suppose to be self fertile.

Plums can be cantankerous about pollenizers. However, I think a big part of the problem is that pollenators don’t especially like them. Unless there is a big show for all trees, there is poor pollination. I think it’s pretty important to place any bucket full of plum flowers close enough to the tree being pollinated that the bees see it all as one big display.

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Below are little NC McKibben Chickasaw plums.

Toole’s Heirloom will have to be thinned soon!

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Can any of you tell me if this is a Chickasaw plum by looking at the blooms? When I planted it that is what it was supposed to be but it has not produced anything yet, but I have high hopes this year.

one would need to be a plum god to figure out what it is from the blossoms. But if the plant is relatively thorny I would say its likely Chickasaw. Chickasaw and European Sloe plums tend to be thorny. The second place I would look are at the leaves do they appear to be more elongated like a peach. angustifolia after all refers to narrow leaves

yes, actually it is thorny. So maybe it is a chickasaw, at least I’m hoping.

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It does look like Chickasaw, but we would have to see a lot more detailed photos of leaves and bark to be sure. Even then, it could be a Chickasaw hybrid.

Just to update if Guthrie and Odom will pollinate each other. While it is a light crop of plums, there was 2 or 3 dozen on each bush. So I guess they do pollinate each other, at least somewhat. I did buy 2 wild chickasaw plums for better pollination.

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Marcus I loved reading about the Bouie/Toole’s tree history over my morning coffee. Please let us know if you learn more.

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LOL! I haven’t learned more yet. But I have a graft from a Bouie tree in my yard now. That only means that it originated from a tree that Johnnel Moore gave to someone. I can already tell that the little tree is distinct from Toole’s Heirloom, but that does not mean they aren’t sisters or at least from the same breading population.

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This looks like the right place to ask. I am going to order 25 Chickasaw Plum seedlings for delivery next winter from the Forestry Dept here in Tennessee. I am going to plant out a block of 20 seedings 4x5. Not sure on the spacing yet (would like suggestions). What I would like to do is graft over some of these improved varieties and see which grows the best for my location and soil type. Question…what size do they need to be to graft over for the best results? Any other suggestions would be appreciated.

You probably already know that most of the Chickasaw will send up several sprouts after the tree gets a few years old. Not a problem especially if you want more trees. I think most people would let the seedling grow a year or two before grafting. I’m impatient so I probably would graft a few of the larger trees before planting.

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It would greatly depend on the size of the seedlings. If they are the size of the ones I got from the Georgia Forestry Commission a couple of years ago, they will be ready for grafting when you get them. Plant them up and graft them as soon as they begin to break dormancy. As was already mentioned, they are going to sucker like heck. You might as well leave space for that. Wild type is rarely any wider than about five feet when in a thicket. But if you planted them further apart and managed the suckers, I imagine they would get bigger over time. I’m not sure any of us really knows how big the cultivars get when growing on a wild Chickasaw rootstock. On an improved Chickasaw root stock they get about 20 foot high and after a big crop or two about as wide. Keep that in mind. I cheat with space all the time. Sometimes I end up regretting it, and sometimes I get away with it.