Scott,
I’m very happy with the varieties you gave me. They are very tasty. Middleburg is very vigorous and productive. The graft on a CGD tree produces as many plums as the whole CGD tree does. Thank you again for your generosity.
@Stan, thank you for the history of the French plums. Love reading this type of info.
Now that I have eaten a few home grown E and A plums, I prefer E plums to J plums. It is the aromatic taste of E plums that gives them an edge to me.
Of course there are many types of J. plums. Hard for me to choose what I like most between E’s and J’s off the tree, but Euro plums are more useful in the kitchen because of a higher sugar to water ratio and better textural properties when cooked. Also E. plum crops are more consistent against frost because they bloom later.
I rely most on the last of my E. plums and the varieties Valor and Empress. This year they were not good. I need to grow some other late types to hedge my bets.
Coe and Middleburg are late season. CGD is just starting to ripen. Middleburg is not quite ripen, either (the ones that dropped were cracked). This year both will ripen in Oct. That is late.
Apples are abundant at this time of the year. Having sweet, aromatic plums around offers something very different. A wonderful thing to have this time of the year,
Stan, thank you for the description. I have prune D’Ente 707 from Raintree. It was it’s 5th year in the ground, and it had just a few flowers and only one fruit ripened. I was completely unimpressed. It was very small and brownish in color. The taste was sweet, but that is all about it. Hopefully it’ll perform better next year.
Yes, the lateness is certainly another potential advantage of E. plums, when I’m not focused on peaches and nects. I certainly need to acquire some Coe and Mid wood. Thanks for the tip.
d’Agen is viewed as a synonym of d’Ente today. Which is itself not a single variety since there are many versions of it.
Are you sure that 707 is the common one grown in California today? Bay Laurel calls French Improved the standard one. Nurseries are very good at caring very little about which clone they are propagating. Unless its a big commercial apple variety, in which case they are all over it!
Some of the different clones ripen at different times, it would be fun to get some different ones to spread out the harvest.
More than just fun, but also useful for me. I have more space to store plums late in season.
I never said it is. It’s most common in France (up to 75% of prune production in France according to some sources), not in California. I also believe that French Improved is the most common variety now in California, although I don’t know exact numbers. New varieties Tulare Giant and Muir Beauty, both developed in University of California, are quite popular now but they have not yet been around long enough to overcome French Improved.
Oops I misread “French” in your post as “French prune” not the country.
It would be nice to see 707 and French Improved grown side by side to see how they compare.
An article I found interesting!
PRUNE D’ENTE
POSTED ON APRIL 25, 2011 BY KATIE
These are not your Grandmother’s prunes!
From the Ente plum to the Agen prune, much has to be done to obtain the tender, tasty, juicy delicacy that’s come to be known as the “black gold of Aquitaine”. The Agen prunes are made from a variety of plums called “Prune d’Ente“, and for export the prunes are also called prune d’Ente. As with most products at Great Ciao the quality is determined by the details, taste the difference.
The most famous prune in the world, the pruneau d’Agen, has been a celebrated product of southwest France since at least the 1500s and the Ente plums have been officially protected since 2002 by the European Union. Agen is a commune in Aquitaine of south-western France. It lies on the river Garonne 84miles southeast of Bordeaux and is the birthplace of the prune d’Agen.
For centuries, prune production was essentially carried out empirically as a cottage industry. Now even as production has been mechanized, and grafts of the Ente plum can grow in California, there are differences.
How to determine ripeness? Most growers determine the time to harvest by measuring the softness of the fruit, which is linked to sweetness; growers aim to pick when resistance to pressure, applied to the fruit with a penetrometer, falls to between three and four pounds. But in France, growers measure the sweetness directly with a refractometer, looking for 21 degrees Brix — each degree equaling approximately 1 percent sugar — and sometimes achieving much more. (Ripeness often used to be determined by the plums themselves, which fall from the tree as they become ripe. Growers would spread straw on the ground as a cushion to prevent bruising.)
Interesting read, Mrs. G.
My two French Improved, one 27 brix, the other 20 brix. The 27 brix was very nice.
My first Coe’s had 25 brix. Large and juicy. Like it a lot.
One of the joys of growing your own plums is that you can often achieve quality unavailable elsewhere- even in farm markets in France at a premium price. Of course, getting high brix is more difficult in a full sized fully cropped tree. This year part of my problem may have been that I didn’t thin enough, but I was planning on PC taking another 30% of my crop. Never happened.
Autumn Crisp is the only E. plum I have that gets very high sugar while still completely firm (therefore commercially shipable as a sweet fruit like pluots). So far it is a total cracker, though. Unlike pluots, it doesn’t really soften in storage and apparently can only be eaten as a crisp plum. Fine by me, if it didn’t crack. I have plenty of ripe-soft varieties. Of course, the best ones have a bit of firmness when at peak but they aren’t crisp.
Be forwarned, Middleburg cracks more than Coe’s. When it rained early last month, 3 - 4 weeks before ripening, some cracked. Coe’s has not cracked.
Both have gotten PC & OFM damage after two sprays of Triazicide, not very effective, I know.
Since eating soft Castleton, I am fine with soft plums. When I gave them away, I told people these soft, a bit wrinkled plums were the best. They believed me after eating them. A few refused to take them because of their appearance. I was quite surprised. No wonder commercial growers care so much about the look of their fruit.
There are two different kinds of softness- I think even a good ripe Castleton shouldn’t be soggy. A lot of my plums this year got to that point and I don’t find it pleasing, even when sweet. The fine points of texture exceed my ability to describe.
The last 4 lbs of Mirabelle Parfume de Septembre. This first year it produce about 8 lbs of fruit on a 3 years old tree.
Thanks to @mrsg47, we will try to make a few jars of plum jam.
@galinas, I had one Green Gage plum from the scionwood you gave me two years ago. It dropped today and was soft ripe. It was tart. No wonder it is perfect for jam. I would not eat this variety fresh.
A proper green gage is instensely sweet. The only plum I grow not sweet off tree is Damson.
Mine and a couple other trees I manage are from Cummins. They were done about a month ago. There are many plums sold as Green Gage. Mine is the one Cornell had in its collection. When we exchange wood I will try to throw in a stick of GG and you can graft and compare.
Great. Thanks.
From a 2016 publication by UC Davis, https://apps1.cdfa.ca.gov/FertilizerResearch/docs/Prune_Plum_Production_CA.pdf
The Sacramento Valley has been the dominant prune-growing area in California since the 1960s, producing more than 80% of the state’s crop. There is also some acreage in the San Joaquin Valley. Although many other varieties have been introduced, almost all today’s commercial prune varieties are “Improved French” type, derived from the original “d’Agen” or “French” prune brought by Louis Pellier and improved by Luther Burbank. French types have the advantage of being both well adapted to mechanical harvesting and easy to dry and process. The production of fresh prunes is a small but growing trend in California. A new variety, Tulare Giant, is the dominant variety in the prune fresh market industry, where large fruits are particularly important.
