My euro plums are all grafted high on marianna2624. It has performed very good as a rootstock. Some sources say it is susceptible to canker and suckering, but it has been quite the opposite so far.
I started 2 eu plums over 5 years ago… mt royal and rosy guage… last spring they were 5 yr olds…
I am in southern middle TN… was 7a… recently chaned to 7b.
Rosy guage has had black knot twice…and I removed limb.
Last spring… mt royal bloomed for first time…like 5-6 sparse blossoms.
Rosy guage did not bloom… but leafed out and in the early leaf out stage all leaves started wilting and it died later in the spring.
So now i have one eu plum left… mt royal.
It is reported to be self fertile… so perhaps i still have a chance for eu plum fruit this year.
Eu plums can take many years to start bearing. 5 6 7.
J plums here are quick to bear…but bloom so early you hardly ever get fruit from then. They start bloomin mid to late Feb…and we almost always have a killng frost after that.
Last spring my AU Rosa bloomed late Feb and set 100 tiny plums… a couple weeks later we had 2 nights in the mid 20s… they all shriveled and fell off.
Typical for j plums here.
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Here they are no more prone than most J.plums to black knot and Bluebyrd is a tasty E. plum that seems immune. They are more attractive to PC and do tend to rot more, but that mostly happens just as they ripen, so a single properly timed fungicide app maybe 3 weeks before harvest is all that’s needed beyond the usual 2 spring sprays in my quite different weather in NY, 40 miles N of the city. .
I am assuming that the rot issue is amplified in your warmer, more humid weather, although my site is in a “protected” hollow that does a fine job of protecting fungus. Black knot makes it hard for me to make a profit on Euro plums- not because they are more susceptible but because they tend to take longer to mature to selling size, much longer. That’s a lot of seasons of cutting out black knot at least twice every year. No wonder all purpose home owner nurseries tend only to sell J’s- usually Santa Rosa.
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Your experience with euro plums is what gave me the courage to try them here. Im already spraying fungicides for nectarines, so its no big deal to spray a few more trees. Frost is my biggest enemy right now and Im hoping the E plums can avoid it most years.
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Grafting high seems to help a lot. But your 7A climate is probably much more suitable than my 9a climate.
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Most Asian type plums won’t survive long in many parts of the SE USA. Euro plums seem completely pointless here. As best as I can tell, bacterial stem canker will get anything here that doesn’t have at least some Chickasaw plum in its pedigree somewhere unless its a cherry plum. The only black knot I have ever had in my orchard was on a European plum which was eventually taken out by stem canker, and on Mariana which will get a bit here and there but seems to sluff it off quite easily. I’ve never seen it at all on any of my varieties with Chickasaw plum in them.
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I know nothing about how plums survive where you are, I was addressing the issues Scott brought forward. Please explain HOW you know that E. plums are impossible to keep alive throughout the south.
Claims alone aren’t very educational. Sometimes folks believe that their own experience at a single site is conclusive proof of a whole region. I just want to know that isn’t you…
Marcus, your previous posts about chickasaws lead me to plant some named selections and hybrids. They have been great at resisting disease, but not so good at avoiding frosts. Their protacted bloom has allowed me to get some fruit this year, which is way better than the zero fruit from my japanese plums. I am hopeful that the disease resistant euros ( bluebyrd, president) can help me get some consistent plums. Plus ive never tried a tree ripened euro plum.
Euro plums do tend to bloom about a week after J. types and in my climate are more likely to escape hard late frost damage than J’s- which is why I asked for further explanation from CMT. However, there is also a big difference between the J’s themselves. It seems the better the taste the more likely to be frozen out here. That may be coincidence and Reema has excellent flavor and seems about as reliable as Shiro, our most reliable of croppers among J’s.
This year none of my J. plums bore a full crop (a mixed blessing) due to a steep drop in temps in the first week of Feb. It was only in the single digits which normally would be harmless, but mild temps preceding made trees more susceptible than what used to be normal for early Feb. My E. plums bore well, only requiring less thinning than on a year with a completely full set.
I have two E plum trees. One, a Stanley, I purchased from Stark Bros about 15 years ago. I should add that I have grafted several varieties to it. It just started producing about three years ago. It now produces about 15 gallons of fruit. As far as curc damage and rot; as long as I spray it with Imidan and Indar there is no trouble. Last year I didn’t spray at all because I have bee hives beside it. It was a total loss. I’m in Zone 7, middle TN. So for my area, as long as you spray they produce very well. My other tree I grafted Vision, Valor, and Middleburg on to Marianna rootstock. It is about 5 years old and is now starting to produce. I cant say if it is the varieties or the rootstock that is causing this one to produce much earlier. I hope this helps those in climates similar to mine trying to decide if they should grow any.
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Alan, any suggestions on where a stick of Reema can be found? My search has turned up empty and I’d really like to trial it here.
I have also looked. This forum is the only hit that I see for a plum by that name.
It can be found in my orchard. You can send me a self addressed stamped envelope if you don’t think you have anything to exchange I might be excited about. Message me in late winter.
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How did your Mt Royal fare this spring?
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@SoMtHomestead … it bloomed and set some fruit… but it did not develop, terminated, fell off…
I checked it good today and found one about the size of a grape that was still hanging on… and had turned reddish purple (ripe like color)… I touched it and it fell off.
No j plums this year … no eu plums either.
Seems like with plums I am always hoping for a better year next year.
TNHunter
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TN Hunter, what happened? I’m middle TN and
I’m going to have a bumper crop of J and E plums.
Have you made prunes from the Chickasaw types? Were they any good?
@Graftman … same old story…
Bloom… i have hope… set fruit… i have hope… frost… oh no… shrivel turn black fall off.
My one remaining eu plum… bloomed sparsely last year… set no fruit… this spring it bloomed pretty good… and set some fruit early on… but they all eventually fell off. It has been planted since 2018… perhaps it just needs more time ?
I dont care for things that take so long to start fruiting good. I have a lapins cherry planted since 2018… zero fruit… it did bloom nicely this spring… set some fruit… which all dropped before ripening.
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They are too juicy to dry without a dehydrator. I’ve tried doing that with both chickasaw type and Asian type and found that they become very tart when dehydrated.
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Thank you. I really want to grow a prune plum but fear that may not be possible for me here in central NC. Stanley was recommended and I may give it a try but I don’t have super high hopes.