OK, I found the Womack site. Am I interpreting it correctly that these are trees with multiple varieties or species grafted in? God bless.
Marcus
Hey Marcus,
I can only go by this USDA info and Womack. https://www.nrcs.usda.gov/Internet/FSE_PLANTMATERIALS/publications/txpmcrb12250.pdf
Iāll take pictures of the leaves and post them Saturday. I bought them taking a gamble not knowing the species but I bought 5 of them and they all look like the same species, looking like Chickasaw.
Marcus, they are still pretty small but with all the rain, they are finally starting to grow. They have grown more in the past week than the rest of the year combined. But they should grow enough by fall to get you some bud wood. About boot high to knee high.
Ortegojeffrey, they are still less than knee high so canāt tell how they will want to grow. The rainbow plums were collected in each of the 3 counties and grown together, picking out the best of the collected varieties. I would think they are all seedlings with a variety of genetics. I had plums from further west. They were good for jelly but too tart for fresh eating.
Hereās the picture of a ripe odom above a ripe guthrie. Both are extremely ripe. The Odom was knocked off the tree unripe and has been sitting in my south facing window ripening for about 5 days. The Odomās skin will also turn a beautiful red. However, this Guthrie was better tasting to me. Both were very soft and very juicy at this stage. The rest of the Odoms are sitting in the tree slowly ripening. 
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Iām very excited to see that dark red flesh. Let us know how the tree ripened ones fare. I imagine they will be better. God bless.
Marcus
Interesting thread! Lots of great information here.
We planted some bare root Chickasaw plum trees (sourced from Willis Orchard in GA) at our small office in N Texas a year and a half ago. Unfortunately, 3 of the 5 did not make it. We watered religiously, used stakes, tree rings, amended the soil, etc. however the plants arrived without much root material. I do not know if these are grafted to peach roots, however we only saw a couple suckers this year.
Of the 2 that made it, one is quite large and the other is pretty spindly. I just checked and realized we have a bountiful harvest of 3 fruits! Unfortunately, the larger tree is suffering from substantial bark split. Otherwise, they look fairly healthy given that the temperature has been around 100. Weāre trying to make sure these receive enough water. Iām also searching for 3 plums to replace the dead ones. We could buy more from Willis Orchard, however it would probably be smart to go with a different improved native plum (that still pollinates Chickasaw).
Local options for summer planting appear limited unless someone in DFW is willing to sell suckers! :). Otherwise, I suppose weāll have to wait until the fall. Do you recommend Bass Pecanās āExcelsiorā? Is anyone interested in mailing suckers from improved cultivars in the fall/winter?
Thank you!
!
I have Tooleās Heirloom. I will tell you what I tell everybody. I usually dig suckers when I get a week off between Christmas and New Years. First dibs goes to what I personally need for use as root stock for scion I get. From that point on, its first come first serve to whoever reminds me and sends me mailing instruction in December. That said, if you have suckers from yours you can use it as root stock for grafting. There are tons of YouTube videos out there showing how to graft. I have nearly unlimited amounts of Tooleās Heirloom scion if you can come up with the rootstock to put it on.
I have order plants from Willis, and they are about the only provider for some things. But there are plenty more reliable online nurseries out there that offer Chickasaw seedlings than Willis. You might want to checkout Bass Pecan Company which offers Chickasaw seedlings. The advantage of getting material from them is that their orchards are in Texas, so their material is more likely to be wired for the heat. Bass Pecan Company offers Excelsior, Gurthrie and I believe Odom which to my knowledge are the only improve Chickasaw varieties available commercially. Iāve already agreed to send scion of Tooleās Heirloom and Dot Piazza to Just Fruits and Exoticās new owners. My guess is that those varieties will be commercially available through them eventuallyā¦
I donāt know for absolute sure if Bass Pecan Companyās Excelsior is the Chickasaw one. There are two varieties by the same name out there. One is a yellow plum that is a Chickasaw. The other is red plum which is a hybrid between Chickasaw and the American Plum. Iām pretty sure that the Excelsior I have is not the Chickasaw, but it did not come from Bass Pecan Company but from a local supplier. But Iāve asked Bass Pecan company if they have photos of the plant and for more information to make double sure that theirsās is the Chickasaw one. They have never responded. Iāve asked Just Fruits the same question about theirs, and they have promised to send me pics as soon as they get a chance. If Iām going to spend money on an āExcelsiorā, I want to be sure that its not P. Americana hybrid that I already have.
A wild Chickasaw is the best bet for pollinizing the improved ones. Whether the improved ones can reciprocate will probably depend on if they are hybrid or not and whether the pollen from them makes a long enough pollen tube to reach the ovum of a wild Chickasaw which has a very long pistol.
Last thing. A sucker is leaving a context where it has the water support of a large root system to a situation where it is having to make due with a small one. Given that, you will be far better off waiting till cool weather and dormancy before transplanting a sucker in your yard. It sometimes helps if you sever the root from the main plant without otherwise disturbing the little one. That will stimulate root growth under the sucker. But if you do that be sure and not disturb the roods radiating out from the sucker away from the trunk and be sure and water sucker and mother tree regularly. You might even give both sucker and mama a bit of pruning just in case the sucker is coming from an important support root for the mother tree. God bless.
Marcus
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Thank you for the excellent information Marcus! There are few informational outlets for these awesome native plums.
-Iām not sure if their website is accurate, however Bass Pecan claims to be located in Raymond MS. I am still thinking about making the drive though. Maybe their HQ is in MS but orchards are in TX? I have not called Just Fruits, however their website seems to imply they will not ship outside of Florida. They do list a bunch of interesting cultivars though. I might call up Nearly Native Nursery. Perhaps they have a couple cultivars in stock.
-Great point on the suckers. It looks like we will have to wait until itās cooler or perhaps keep the sucker at home where we can water twice a day, etc.
-Ok that makes sense regarding pollination. Hopefully our Chickasaws are the unimproved variety. If not, I might start looking for a true wild Chickasaw to improve pollination. I attributed the poor fruit crop to a lack of water and the recent planting, however it could be that we do not have a good pollinator tree.
-I hate to be a bother but if you can spare a sucker or two this winter, we would be very grateful (happy to remind in December). Would also be more than happy to pay for shipping and a fair price for the suckers themselves. I have never grafted a scion to rootstock, however I will start researching the options. The fruits on our trees are probably just 60% the size of Tooleās Heirloom and we have a lot of free space for more trees.
-I believe the yard workers mowed down our sucker. I will look at putting up a wire mesh or more mulch to dissuade mowing.
Thanks again,
Dallas
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The original Bass Pecan Company used to located between Lumberton, MS and Columbia, MS. This goes back as far as I can remember to the 1950s. Large pecan groves were along Hwy 13.
Wild Chickasaws here in Georgia are usually about the width of my thumb. Hereās a thing to realize about Chickasaw seedlings coming from a nursery. If their seed source is close enough to Asian and Improved varieties, some of the seedlings will be hybrids with them. That was something that the folks from the University of Saskatchewan made a point to make. They say that the only 100% reliable pollinizer to any plum hybrid is a wild plum from the same species as the North American parent, with a wild plum one of the other closely related North American species being about 95% reliable. A seedling from a nursery is less reliable than a plant transplanted from the wild population located away from cultivated trees because of the potential of the seedling turning out to be a hybrid itself. This came up because I asked Rick Sowouski if I had to find a P. americana to pollenize my hybrid Excelsior. He said probably not since I already have six wild Chickasaw plums in my orchard. He said that there was a 95% chance than any one strain of wild Chickasaw plums will pollinize the p. americana hybrid.
I donāt know about Chickasaws further west, but the wild ones around here donāt have tap roots at all. They mostly have long, sometimes thick roots with few feeder roots connecting the individual trunks. I discovered this when transplanting my trees from the wild. I did that in early spring. With several of my trees, I dug up a nearly six foot root with it and still cut the above bush to about a foot because there were zero feeder roots. The little tree would have been totally dependent on the water and nutrients in that big root until it got around to making feeder roots. That is the advantage of working with seedlings when it comes to wild Chickasaw. At least with a small seedling the feeder roots will be close to the tree, not 30 feet away wherever the growing type of the mother plant (colony) is. I made a point to get my wild Chickasaw plums from two different colonies because of the huge potential that all the trees in a given wild colony are clones with one another. Genetically I might have two wild trees rather than six. God bless.
Marcus
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As for Just Fruits and Exotics shipping out of state, their policy depends mostly on government restrictions and quarantines. For example they donāt ship to Arizona, California and Hawaii because those states donāt allow any nursery materials into those states. They canāt ship citrus out of Florida because of the federal quarantine of Florida Citrus on account of greening disease. My guess is that they can and do ship to Texas except when it comes to quarantined material such as citrus. God bless.
Marcus
Marcus,
Interesting regarding the hybridization. It seems there is a great deal of natural variation just among āChickasawā plums. Our plums are a bit bigger than the width of my thumb. I will head over to the office again, brave the heat, and take some pictures. Do the fruits feel like a domestic plum when ripe? Iām guessing ours will need less than another week before picking.
Based on your root description, our Chickasaws might be close to the wild type (unless theyāre actually hybrids). When we planted they did not have tap roots, just one thicker horizontal root (1.5" diameter x 6"?) with a few small roots off the main. I could not locate a grafting point but I am not a grafting expert. Iām guessing this is why 3/5 failed- the small roots could not supply the plants enough water even though we were watering religiously for weeks. I also wonder if the two survivors are clones (probably yes). This sounds like another good reason to find a different source for the remaining 3.
I understand, thank you for the clarification. I will plan on calling Just Fruits this week to learn more about their selections. Iām honestly happy that 3 perished at this point. Best to improve the chances of a successful pollination and disease resistance with diversity.
P.S. One of my longer-term plans is to set up one of my parcels as a nursery or orchard. I will probably ground-lease the area out, however I will keep an eye out for prospective plum growers! I feel these native plums are really underappreciated.
Thank you!
I got my odom and guthrie plum from Mail Order Natives. They are currently out of Guthrie but have Odom in stock. They get more in through out the year, but do not ship in July and August. They are in one gallon potting mix root ball. Small but with good roots.
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Bass Pecan Company nurseries are located in Raymond, MS. The nursery was relocated from Lumberton when we purchased it in 2006. All of our orchards are located in MS.
Thanks for the info. I would love to see a picture of your Excelsior plum. Even a photo of an immature plant with no fruit will likely be enough for me to know if itās the same as the one I have. The one I have is most likely they P. Americana X Asian plum hybrid. The leaves are quite distinctive from other Chickasaw type plums like Guthrie, Odom and Tooleās Heirloom. God bless.
Marcus
Marcus. I thought that I had responded on the Excelsior plum. Ours was the Chickasaw type. However we had a storm this winter and our mother tree was destroyed. I do not have another source for scion wood.
We have planted a trial of Chickasaw, Munson and Mexican plums to possibly select for desired traits.
Iām sorry to hear about your loss of the Excelsior. Apparently Just Fruits has it, but their mother tree is young I understand. By the way, if you want to try Tooleās Heirloom or Dot Piazza, just let me know, and I can send you scion in January. I have pics above. My impression from pics of Guthrie is that Tooleās Heirloom is similar but based on descriptions of others, the fruit might be a bit bigger and sweeter on average. Unlike what I hear of Guthrie, it has a very strong tendency to sucker when on its own root. I can only describe the flavor as a mix between peach and Hawaiian Punch. My Guthrie plums are grafted into Tooleās Heirloom rootstock and are growing vigorously. One is grafted into a multi-variety tree on Tooleās Heirloom where I still have some Tooleās Heirloom branches that I plan to graft other varieties into. The Guthrie soft-wood twigs are all tinged in red while the Tooleās Heirloom softwood twigs are green. Both are growing equally vigorously. The wood of the two varieties is different even though the leaves and general growth habit are identical as best as I can tell except for the suckering tendency of Tooleās Heirloom. Iāve only had one Dot Piazza Plum. That one plum was fabulous and pretty, kind of a dappled pink like a Dappled Dandy with a watermelon pink / red flesh. The tree is clearly Chickasaw even though it might have other things in its genome. The tree that Iāve seen has one sucker and is about 20 ft tall. God bless.
Marcus
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Anyone growing the Purple Pride Chickasaw from SFA University?
Not yet. I bet dollars for donuts itās a hybrid with P. caracifera, not that this is a problem or anything. God bless.
Marcus
