"Gold" plum ID and pollinator

I have a plum from a local big box labeled “gold plum” in the ground for the last three years. It is the earliest blooming plum tree in my orchard and has profuse flowers. It has had poor fruit set, mostly due to frost, but also I think due to pollination. Elephant heart and spring satin bloom a little later but had good overlap, but don’t appear to pollinate that well. Toka has some overlap also. I think this tree comes from Vaughn, as they have a plum tree they call “gold”, but they don’t provide pollinator information. I know vaughn sometimes renames varieties (see flavorich). Does anyone know if this plum has a different name? Any pollinator recommendations?

I have Gold plum. Got it from Lowes a few years back. Flowers every year, but has yet to fruit. I have plenty of pollinators, so not sure what the problem is. It is a euro plum if that makes any difference for you.

I would be hesitant to say it is a euro plum due to its early bloom.

https://www.lowes.com/pd/Prunus-Domestica-Gold-Dwarf-Tree-L4879/3633682

This is what I have except it was not dwarf. Maybe they mislabeled it euro. It does bloom early like yours.

I swear yellows are slow to fruit. I have Vermont and it has yet to fruit and I too have like 6 varieties within 20 feet. Some are inches away! I have had it 3 years too. Maybe it’s the same as gold?
I heard Santa Rosa, and Burgundy are good pollinators. I have the former only.
Near it is a bunch of other Laroda, Satsuma, Lavina, Nadia, Superior, Toka, Spring Satin, Splash, and Howard Miracle.

What made you think it was a Euro. I bought a gold plum from lowes too and always assumed it was a Japanese. I looked at your link and didn’t see anything about Euro…but I may have missed it.

And I completely agree with @Drew51 . I have 3 yellow plums and all 3 have been incredible slow to fruit and don’t bare much when they do. THey also aren’t particularly good when I do manage to get a few. If I didn’t have plenty of space I’d have cut mine out by now. I have a Byron Gold, Gold (likely the same), and one called Sweet Rush which I got from Wal-mart.

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Prunus Domestica is euro. Has it right next to the name on the Lowes ad. I have been thinking about grafting over it.

ha. Guess I need to pay more attention to the latin names. But I don’t trust Lowes to get much of anything right on Fruit Trees. I’m a bigger supporter of big box fruit trees than most people here, but I usually say “except for Lowes”. I can seriously and honestly tell you that MORE THAN 50% of my Lowes trees have been mislabeled. You could flip a coin and get better success rates than they have. I think they could care less what kind of tree they put a label on!

Yes, I’m in the process of grafting over six of their mislabeled trees. Six Ayers that were supposed to be something else. It’s just hard to say no to their cheap prices for nice size trees.

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Shiro is a yellow that gives a big crop fairly quickly…not the best tasting plums but very vigorous/makes a good base tree for multigraft

Shiro is also a healthy and reliable producer of quality fruit… That taste okay.

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I was just about to ask if those folks had experience with Shiro and if it is a timid bearer. I have a stick of it to graft soon. I probably won’t put it on the gold plum, I have several marianna that I started last year where it will go.

It looks like my Santa Rosa has already bloomed 75% and my Gold plum is still 2-3 days away from blooming. I hope I can make those work out or else I am going to be scrambling to find some wild plums near me to steal some pollen. :crossed_fingers:

Most nurseries don’t have a clue about the genetics of what they sell…

All the box stores around here and several nurseries were equally bad about id’s. Label’s having no idea of correct species or hybrid parentage. But many university websites are just as bad, unfortunately!

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