I had some gorgeous plum trees. Especially the Shiro, Green Gage and Santa Rosa. But As I said, they all got covered with black knot, so I cut them all down.
I wonder if I should have cut off all branches and just left the trunk and any few limbs without the knot. Then let them grow and hopefully produce fruit until they get covered with knot, which may take many years. Then keep repeating the process of stripping the tree of all its branches. The trunk never showed any black knot from what I recall.
What do you think? Or is it better to just pull ithe tree out?
If I were you, I might have been tempted to try doing that with the greengage just because I love the fruit, but, as you say, the trees were gorgeous. The problem with black knot—whether you prune it out or not—is that the trees become disfigured. Because you don’t get to decide which branches get black knot it can become nearly impossible to maintain attractive and effective scaffolds. One of the advantages of stone fruit is that they’re very attractive trees, but not if they’re forced into a bizarre shape by a disease. The other problem is that if it becomes necessary to regularly prune off large branches, you’ll end up with reduced fruit yields.
I live in a black knot prone area where the easiest way to identify a wild black cherry is by the presence of black knot. The trees are everywhere and they all have knot. My solution—so far—is simply not growing plums because they seem to be way more likely to get it than other stone fruit. That’s not to say I don’t think you should. It’s just that I have limited space and can get very nice plums at farmers markets every year, so I avoid the hassle. That said, some trees—including those wild black cherries—can live, and produce fruit, with black knot.
So far I haven’t had any signs of black knot on my sweet cherries or sour cherries, but I had a myrobalan rootstock grow back from a dead apricot and by the end of its first season most of the branches had suspicious green swelling that looked like the beginning of black knot. I was initially going to let it grow and taste the fruit, but when I saw the swelling I cut all the stems down to ground level and they grew back looking normal. I’m going to graft a new apricot on instead.
If I had been in your position I’m pretty sure I would’ve tried to save the trees and it would’ve been a nightmare. I think you made the right choice.
I only have 1 cherry, the self-pollinating gold cherry or some such thing. No black knot after 16 or 17 years. Birds strip it before they are ripe. But if watchful you can get some small edible cherries.
Yes, shame about the plums. I am trying an Au Rosa this year. It is supposed to be the most resistant to knot. It takes some time for knot to develop. Will report back on it in 9 - 10 years or so.
I’m short on space too, so don’t need loafers. If I had lots of acreage, I would have left the trees in their diseased state. They still seemed to produce fine fruit. But was worried about it spreading to other trees.
