I very much doubt there is anything at all wrong here in regards to your pruning. It looks fine to me in regards to fruit production, in fact, it looks ok to me all the way around.
I think Alan nailed it though…I’m thinking the odds are reasonable (not necessarily strong) that it may be an imposter. I’ve had two like this and they got big and looked nice (not as big or nice as yours though, but close) and I waited and waited and waited. When they finally did fruit the fruit was sparse, awful, and completely wrong to label. I have absolutely no idea why, but plums seem to be the leading candidates for imposter trees from my experience as well as reading about the experiences of others as well.
I also am curious about the sunlight as Alan mentioned. It looks pretty good in the photos from an exposure standpoint, but without compass direction and time of day as well as a 360 degree panorama it’s tough to tell for sure.
I wouldn’t tear it out just yet…nobody here is sure about anything other than it looks like a tree that should be producing. You have a good sized tree with pretty good structure and no doubt a massive root network.
I agree with Brady, I’d choose a limb that was questionable and graft it over to something known to be a heavy producer…something you think you’ll like.
Something else I’m wondering, and I’ll just toss it out there for the experts to decide upon. IS it possible that this tree is being over-fertilized?
I’m just asking, because that grass underneath looks awfully thick and green. Yes, I know it’s spring and everything…but man that grass looks heavily fertilized to me. I also see a ton of small caliper pruning cuts right to the scaffolds.
Olpea was forgetting where you are, or the time of year (I did too) when he mentioned the lack of foliage and vigor. It’s just popping now, and I bet it’s lush and green in the summer. I can see leaves just emerging from distant large trees in the background.
Speed…if euro plums had the same growth characteristics as Japanese plums I think they’d be grown a ton more. IMO (and mo only) Euro plums are vastly superior to Japanese plums for eating quality…even though I really do love a tree ripened Japanese plum. Neither is particularly DR (from a long-term perspective), but euro plums in our hot humid summers suffer from a ton of maladies. Japanese varieties seem to tolerate it a bit better, but even they have a lot of similar issues.
Japanese grow BIG…and quick…the Euros…not so much.
I would never be without Japanese plums, but, to me, nothing looks as beautiful as a heavily laden (they grow this way here in Z6) deep, deep purple blue euro…no kidding.
The Japanese plum texture is similar to biting into or squeezing a saturated sponge as far as juciness, of course, super sweet. As Olpea said though, their often (perhaps mostly) tart skin though kinda balances that sweetness. Many are put off by it though.
I think murky said it best, Euro’s are meatier. They are also imo much more attractive looking as well, and they will bear as heavy, if not, heavier than a Japanese plum under similar conditions.
I love them both.
Are you sure you weren’t looking at Olpea’s photo?
The photo seems to show a tree that had been stubbed back and smaller wood wasn’t allowed to grow and given room and light because of a surplus of big branches.
The smaller wood is vertical and very young.
I’ve gotten terrible varieties of plums that didn’t hold much fruit (dropped it when tiny) that was awful but I still got the wood to bloom well. I’ve never in my life had a tree that refused to flower.
I would never plant another Mt.Royal unless I was in a Z4. It is an inferior plum to many others, IMO. If you want a purple prune plum, grow Castleton, or Empress or both. They are equally precocious and reliable in my experience. Valor might be slightly better than Empress in quality but takes longer to fruit and doesn’t seem quite as reliable.
However, with that big tree already established, I completely agree that the best thing to do would be to graft on it- next warm spell. You could be harvesting excellent plums from it within 2 or 3 years. Even precocious E. plums are slow to bear compared to J. plums.
I always knew that euro and japanese plums wont cross pollinate but I didn’t realize it was due to later bloom period. Is there more to it though? If you were to harvest pollen from a japanese plum could you months later use it to pollinate the euro plum? And what about graft compatability? Could I graft a few euro varieties to my japanese plums or pluots?
I wonder that also. This years weird weather brought a lot of overlap of the two but I can’t evaluate their possible compatibility.
Supposedly you can graft a J. on a E but not vice-versa. However I have thriving E grafts on a J in my orchard. This will be the third year and the unions look perfect.
One other thought is that you could try girdling the trunk. It tends to slow down vigor and can sometimes help induce fruiting.
Another trick I’ve heard of is taking a spade and sticking it deep in the ground going all the way around the tree just inside the drip line to sever some of the feeder roots.
I haven’t tried the spade trick myself, so can’t say from experience if it works or not, but I have tried girdling which seems to help a tree start bearing if it’s ready to bear, but just being slow.
Thank you all, guys. Now I am completely confused.
I do not fertilize the grass. And do not fertilize this tree as well. Only fertilization grass has - is my 2 dogs’ urine, I could do nothing about.
For sun light, it has full sun in summer, but much less in early spring, winter and fall, as house shades south sun when it is low. The picture of the tree is taken from south-south-west, camera pointing north-north-east.
Inferior in what way? Bad producer, fruit quality? So far the tree looks nice, at least it doesn’t go to the sky as GG.
You sound like it is just what it takes to graft. . For me it is like playing chess. I know how figures should move(sort of), and I do have hands to move them. Does it make me a chess player?
Can you explain to dummy what it means, or may be point to the source where I can read or watch it?
This sounds interesting. I may try it. At least it feels like a step toward removing the tree
Just realized it is not possible in my yard. There is no ground, there is FILL. Basically soil is only inside red bricks… Outside is 2 inches of poor top soil on top for mostly clay and gravel fill. 2 inches is a max I can do when I push my shovel in without pick or bar. Keeping that in mind - I have no idea what this tree is feeding on, unless it’s roots are much wider, then the drip line. When I planted Mt.Royal and apricot I had to bring 2 cubic yards of soil to raise the level. of my sloppy yard… But it is outside GG drip line.
Thank you, all!
I googled it
Girdling, also called ring-barking is the
complete removal of a strip of bark (consisting of cork cambium, phloem,
cambium and sometimes going into the xylem) from around the entire
circumference of either a branch or trunk of a woody plant. Girdling results in the death of the area above the girdle over time. Sounds like a solution
Still need to know what it means in terms of fruit growers…
Mt Royal is a small plum with a fairly tough skin that seems better suited for preserves than eating off the tree. It doesn’t seem to quite get up the sugar of a high quality prune-plum.
I forgot to mention that the way I got my Green Gage to fruit when it didn’t do so as quickly as it should is festooned the main branches- that is bent them well below horizontal in early spring and the next year those branches flowered heavily and the tree has been reliable since.
Alan,
I googled Fedco, Mt Royal Plum and I found this.
“Mount Royal European Plum Late Summer. Popular plum in Quebec and the northern U.S. for many years. Also called Mont-Royal. Bears abundant annual crops of medium-sized roundish dark purple fruit. Often considered the sweetest of the European plums. The flesh is greenish-yellow, juicy and firm. Use fresh, dried, frozen, canned and in preserves. Medium-sized tree is open with good crotch angles and requires only moderate pruning. Prunus domestica Chance seedling, Outremont, Quebec, before 1903. Discovered by Mr. Corse in or near Montreal sometime between 1830-1850. Z3.”
From Fedco’s description, it’s not bad at all. I do not have eaten any tree-ripened Euro plum, unfortunately.
I don’t agree with Fedco- but they specialize in northern fruits and I expect it is better up there. Eric from Plumhill Farm rates it pretty high, but not the best. He prefers Empress and several other varieties over it for flavor. He’s in a Z5, I think in NH.
I am comparing it to Castleton and Valor on the site where I manage 2 Mt Royals. I don’t even bother to thin them anymore because no one picks them. They also ignore nearby Victoria and Damson plums. It is a site with well over 100 full sized fruit trees that they give their friends pretty much carte-blanche to pick fruit, so I get a good gage of what folks like there.
Last year I gave the Damsons to a woman who’s part of a new spirits brewing company and needed them to make an ancient portuguese liquor.
Alan, how do you bend main branches, mine are 2 inch diameter? Or just bend that parts that can bend? And preserves are good! It is only two of us, so I prefer fruit you can make good preserves from. And sour fruit is good as well, peaches way too sweet to preserve, I have to add citric acid to them just for taste.
For festooning you only bend the part of the branch that can be bent without breaking- whatever you can get below horizontal will likely flower up next season if it also gets light on it- which might mean removing a few big branches in the process.
All prune plums make great preserves- ones like Damson, considered exceptionally good for this, just have a little more astringency and acidity. The acid can be duplicated with a bit of lemon juice. The only way I really notice the superiority of Damson preserves is when I have them side by side with ones made from Valor or another larger fruiting, better tasting off the tree plum.
Once trees start bearing you may begin to appreciate the advantage of larger plums- they are less work to process.
Late for a scion request but does anyone have any dormant euro plum scions? Now I’m really intrigued. I could try grafting it to my Japanese plums or even Nadia on St Julian. I don’t really care what variety it would be as long as it is self fruitful. Gage’s, mirabelle, damsons.
Planted a Green Gage (or, at least I purchased it as such, and it came labeled as such) 20 years ago. It produced a few fruit one year…maybe 10 years ago… they were purple.
It’s in an out-of-the-way corner of the orchard, not sure why I’ve not removed it yet…like almost all other stonefruits we planted… not worth the space here.
. For me it is like playing chess. I know how figures should move(sort of), and I do have hands to move them. Does it make me a chess player? 
