Green Gage: The Holy Grail Of Stone Fruits

Any Euro plum should work … at least in my orchard they all bloom around the same time.

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I got a Bavay’s Green Gage and Green Gage last year without doing much research into it. Apparently I got the best tasting gages and for what it is worth both my gages grew very well. In one year I cannot reach the top of my gages. Supposedly I live in a good area for plums though.

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There were a tonne of green gage plums in my area back in the 70s. I’m not old enough to remember them, but people who do tell me stories of how lovely it was to pick them right off the trees, as many as you could pick. Unfortunately black knot made its first ugly appearance here some time in the 90s or 2000s and now any plum trees anywhere are barely alive, covered in black knot, and haven’t fruited at all in decades. With the wild cherry populations here, there will always be a reservoir, so fresh plums are unfortunately simply off limits for me. To the green gage growers in the thread: have one for me next season!

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Wow! Do you do anything special for the trees/soil? How old is this tree, can I ask?

Do your late plums continue ripening even when the weather gets cool & wet in fall? We have dry summers here in Seattle (summer rains are rare) & it starts to rain by the 3rd or 4th week of September. I’m wondering if that will harm late ripening fruit?

Plums keep ripening when it gets cooler, there are enough warmer days in between the cooler ones that they ripen at a slower pace. Heck apples keep ripening until mid-late November for me.

@WildApple23 it is not too hard to control black knot on a small tree, just cut off smaller knotted limbs and blowtorch the knots on larger limbs as soon as you see the knots. I only lost one tree to knot and it was hyper-susceptible so I’m glad I got rid of it. In any given year I remove maybe 50 knots from my 20 or so plum trees. Occasionally there is a really light or really heavy year.

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Oh! Good approach.

@scottfsmith

I had a damson for a couple years, the thing would be more black knot than wood every year, despite me cutting it off as soon as I saw any black knot appearing at all (which amounted to removing probably 1/4 of the tree’s limbs annually). There’s a wild cherry grove close to me full of black knot, and some old damsons that are also mostly black knot on a neighbour’s property. Trust me, apples are far more worth my time here haha. Thank you for the tip though nonetheless.

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Have you tried any of these?

Chlorothalonil
Copper Hydroxide
Copper Octanoate
Copper Sulphate
Propiconazole
Thiophanate-methyl

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Do you ever get problems with lack of chill hours?

I recently planted Green Gage and Bavay (also called in Spain Reina Claudia Tolosa) in my farm in Southern Spain, and I generally don’t get much chill. The climate is sort of similar to many areas of costal California and the Valley.

I planted them anyway, because the Green Gage and Bavay are one of my favourite fruit, but I’m intetested to know of people in a similar situation to my own.

In Spain it’s a classic of late summer. They are the only commonly sold euro plums, now that the asian plum has taken over most comercial orchards.

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My Green gage from the house in the Bay Area, my daughter texted me this recently, pictures of this tree is 10 years ago. I think I bought from Raintree nursery, maybe it’s a Bavay. It’s very tasty, very sweet.
I never fertilized or did anything to it.
It’s incredibly productive.

Close in shot of one side of the tree

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That is very encouraging, that tree looks fantastic! And knowing it was a great producer gives me further hope.

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I looked at my zone in the Bay Area, it’s between 9b to 10a.

Scott, this is the first time I’d heard of anyone suggesting to blowtorch a living tree you intend to keep, but I’m intrigued by the method and will add it to the wheelhouse. Thanks for sharing.

I bought a blow torch at Scotts recommendation and couldn’t really figure out how to use it. I tried it on several trees but didn’t notice particularly positive results. It’s pretty hard to tell how hot you’ve gotten the tissue. Your eyes tell you nothing. Rather than a blow torch, I cut it out and spray wounds with chlorothalonil. It may reduce the chance of return infections to a wound site. Seems to.

I’ve spent a lot of money paying my helper to cut it out in my nursery the last few years since we’ve had a string of wet springs. It amuses me if someone says they know exactly how black-knot will behave as a general rule because I see so much unpredictable fluctuation between sites not related to sun exposure or varieties.

Can anyone find any research on the subject of controlling or suppressing black knot with a blow torch?

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As far as I know it is my own idea and my own informal research in the last five or so years says it works well.

One downside I am finding as I prune now is the torched ones don’t look very different from live ones. I need to chip them with my pruners sometimes to make sure they are dead ones.

Before the blowtorch I was pruning them out and it was working fine but maybe one out of three times it would not all get cut and would come back. With torching I am so far batting 1000.

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I was hoping someone else would pipe up who followed your suggestion… you have been suggesting this approach for some time. Return infections are not the largest problem to me… unless they are leading to more new infections.

What I’ve found works exceptionally well is dry stretches during the growing season :wink:. Seriously, spring was wet last year… again, but things did dry out at times during summer and black-knot pressure was much less.

Could you tell me a little bit more about the location? Where in Bay Area? Also, do you have any pictures of the fruit? I know of a few places in Bay Area where Bavay Green Gage was planted and so far not very productive (close to zero). However, all of them were planted in the last 4-5 years and I hear these trees take longer to produce. I planted one in my home in San Jose and I didn’t see any fruits for 3 years as well. I pulled it out this year in my quest to replace all citation rootstocks. I was wondering if we just don’t get enough chill or the tree might take longer to produce.

I’ll pm you the location. But it’s north of San Jose.
I don’t have any picture of this fruit, I’m trying to find that close up picture but it’s lost, it’s very prolific and big size like my Shiro.

I’ve torched black knot in the past and it was effective in stopping spread of that knot. 3 years in and the branch I attempted to sterilize with fire has proven safe from further spread of the infection.

Unfortunately I have an apartment bld nearby with a prunus padilla (mayday tree) with limbs that seem both covered and surviving with the infection.

Scott

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