Green is finally beginning to peek through my fruiting spurs on all five of my plum trees. I cannot wait until they blossom. I am hoping for good fruit set this year as all five of my plum trees are loaded with spurs. The buds are not yet near bloom stage, just ‘green tip’ but walking through the orchard now is exciting. The pollenation should be excellent. This is the first year for pears. Getting ready to start grafting after Easter. The orchard is coming back to life from a long non-winter and very cold spring. Soon I’ll have pics to post as I have been living vicariously through all of yours!
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Hi Mrs. G. It’s good to hear from you again! I hope things have gone as well as possible for you these past weeks.
Best,
Mark
Thanks Mark. All is coming along!
Once a plumb flowers is there a way to tell if a piece of fruit will develop? My Methley just flowered profusely and I’m super curious to see if any fruit will develop.
Yes, you will see a very small green ‘fruitlet’ forming.
Any idea how long it takes for that to happen once the flowers are gone?
You should pretty much be able to see the small fruitlet as the flower falls off. It will be about the size of an unpopped popcorn kernal.
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Speedster is right! It will be a tiny green, shiny, pointed (teardrop) shape coming out of the center of the ex-flower.
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What I’m used to seeing on mine before the flowers fall, is that if the stem stays a nice green and the style stays strong looking as the blossoms age and start to look worn out, there’s usually a plum forming. If the stem starts to yellow, then it usually falls off along with the blossom. So, no plum was forming.
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Or phrased another way, either the bloom will completely fall off and there will be a clean break at the end of the stem, or there will be at the very least a tiny nubbin (often well defined as a fruitlet) that is the tiny fruit. There will be no doubt once you see it!
Not a plum, but here are some apple fruitlets that formed for me last year shortly after bloom:
… eventually they got bigger:
… and became Gingergold apples!
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Nice photo documentation series, Matt!