i am close to Kings Mountain, NC. thanks!
thanks for the welcome, and for your thoughts 
my experience says that some plum seed is double dormant and the degree to which they express this can differ between species. i generally let them sprout in stratification. then i separate the sprouters from the non-sprouters, knowng that the non-sprouters will germinate the following spring.
you have good success rooting plum cuttings? softwood?
Hi Alexander,
Generally I have better success rooting dormant scions in early spring. Usually I use either homemade willow hormone or powder treatment prior to rooting. Sealing the scion above the rooting medium seems to help the process.
Dennis
Kent, wa
I think it is defensive, but as trees mature, the thorns become the fruiting spurs.
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in truth we can only speculate as to why thorns exist on a lot of thicket species, and as @coolmantoole mentioned, protection from predation seems to make some sense.
one thing not often mentioned is that these thicket-forming plants with thorns, once they have established a nice thicket, protect young deer and other creatures from predation by offering a safe haven from predators.
i can say a lot more about this relationship, but i will end there.
in synopsis: thorns on young trees protect the young trees from deer browse. once the young trees are older, and a proper thicket is established, the thorns protect the young deer.
it can go both ways. 
Agree but I suggest although I cannot prove this, the Thornes are a method of assuring ripeness to do that the seeds are fully mature before they are spread by animals, as a way of perpetuating the species. Sort of like a weed or crabgrass- the very first thing they do is start a seed head!
Nearly complete loss this year because of a late hard freeze. All the plums were done blooming and had set a good crop. They sailed through overnight/ early morning temperatures of 29-32 with very little damage. Temperatures between 25-28 resulted in 98%+ damage. It appears 28 is the critical temperature, though Iām sure the duration of the freeze also matters. This is at a site in nearly full sun, with good cold air drainage. On the bright side, I wonāt have to battle plum curculio.
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@haldog, I do have some good news on that front. The Guthrie, Tooleās Heirloom and unnamed local Chickasaw plum trees (listed near to far) that you so generously gifted me in January of this year appear to have survived the recent cold snap with no ill effects. They were kept outdoors, near a fence that runs down a hill, and it was only Saturday night/Sunday morning which they needed to be placed in the back seat of the truck for some minimal protection.
I did have some potted fig trees which had already leafed out, and the protection offered by the tarp that I hung over them was not sufficient to protect them fully. Those leaves are now looking pretty sad.
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That is good news. My trees also appear fine even though they had all leafed out-just the fruit was frozen. I guess this will be a year for pruning, as the trees are usually very vigorous even with a full fruit load.
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Greetings all. Quick question about scion. Does anyone happen to have any Ruby Queen scion left that they would be willing to sell. PM me if you do. Thanks.
Marcus Toole
It looks like my potted Chickasaw plums will set a few blooms this year. It looks like Toka, Alderman, Hollywood, Shiro, Superior, Candy Heart, and Flavor Grenade will overlap. I only have a handful of flowers on each tree, so I am wondering which I should try to dust them with. I am not interested in crossing the two Chickasaw plums together right now.
I want the Chickasaw plums as the female of the cross because I read that it tends to result in the offspringās pollen being more viable if the mother is the wild plum. I am guessing that the plums will have the best viability, starting with Toka and Hollywood. I think that Candy Heart and Flavor Grenade will have less chance of success, but perhaps a good potential for higher quality offspring.
Has anybody here done any successful Chickasaw plum hybrids? I have AU-Rosa, so I know it is possible. I like the idea of using Flavor Grenade the best, due to firmness and fruit size. I will try to promote more fruiting spurs for next year, but Iām not sure which pollen partner to go with. The Chickasaw plums may not overlap with these varieties next year.
Of the ones you mentioned, Toka sounds the most interesting to me.
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Yeah, I think it has the highest probability of producing viable offspring. I also wonder if it would lead to firmer flesh. My only concern is the smaller size of Toka fruit.
My experience is that a wild type chickasaw plum will pollinize and produce viable offspring with any Asian or North American type cultivar it blooms with. Itās a super pollinizer. Iāve yet to see direct evidence of a chickasaw cultivar or hybrid pollinizing anything. My guess is that your wild plum will pollinize Toka, and nothing in your yard will pollinize it. My guess is that the seedlings will only be fruitful when they bloom with a chickasaw plum. There are exceptions to the rule. I know that on two occasions a Guthrie Chickasaw cultivar was pollinized by ornamental purple leaf cherry plums. Drag Queen and a couple of other ornamental cultivars are products of this union. My Drag Queen bloomed a little bit twice. The bottom of the tree bloomed first and bloomed with some wild chickasaw types. Those branches sat some plums. The top branches bloomed real late and only bloomed with cherry plums. Those branches did not produce any plum. It was a small sample of flowers in both locations. And branches high in a very young tree often donāt set fruit even when they bloom well. Since Drag Queen is the only purple leaf tree anywhere near my property, I plan to conduct a pollination experiment with it. If it blooms well next year I will try to germinate seeds from all the plum tree cultivars that bloom with it and see if any seedlings carry the purple leaf trait. If any varieties yield purple leaf seedlings, it will mean that Drag Queen has some capacity to pollinize it.
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From what I have read, viability of the pollen in the offspring is much higher if the wild plum is the female of the cross. That is supposedly what was done to make the A.U. plums. My A.U. Rosa is 75% Santa Rosa, and 25% Chickasaw plum. It is self-fertile. I believe the Prunus simonii in Santa Rosa may have improved its compatibility with the wild plum. Most of my Asian type plums are hybrids, so I did a lot of reading into pollinating them. I grafted Toka to pollinate Alderman, if the others should fail. If Toka fails, I was planning to look for Kaga. I bought Chickasaw in case the hybrid plums failed.
My guess is that a wild type chickasaw will pollinize any Asian type plum or Asian X North American plum it blooms with. The challenge is that wild type Chickasaw plums are insanely early bloomers.
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That was my guess as well. The wild plums have a good reputation as pollinizers. It turns our that Chickasaw blooms late in my area, compared to the other plums. I am not sure why, but it could be a matter of chill hours vs heat requirement. I even have them in black containers that I would expect to warm the roots faster. Perhaps it is less susceptible to the weird temperature fluctuations we get here in Winter. I could not find any info about anyone growing it here in PNW, so I decided to give it a try.
This has been a weird year where Frost peach is flowering with my earliest plums, and well before my later Asian/hybrid types.
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A couple of really interesting documents; the first is an article describing the rise and fall in popularity of selected or improved native north american plums, in case you didnāt see it in my beach plum thread. The second is a historical orchard annual flyer and price list, containing dozens of named native and hybrid plum selections. Wonderful, interesting and upsetting reading, all at the same timeā¦
https://arboretum.harvard.edu/stories/recalling-plums-from-the-wild/
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I grew up in rural ND some 50+ years ago. I didnāt know it at the time but improved/select wild cultifers were somewhat common on farm sites and shelterbelts. Nobody knew their name. You would just refer to it as a good one since the vast majority of wild plums werenāt any good. Wild plums were often planted as the outside row in shelterbelts since they are dense and low and would block the wind at the ground level. On the ends of these rows you would be more apt to find the better plums. I believe that for economic reasons they limited the number of improved ones and put them on the ends were they were easy to find .
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