My Ozark premier is enormous and has produced about 3 plums in 6 or more years. It is always loaded with blooms very early.
@Rosdonald … that would be my luck with Ozark premier…
The AU Roadside variety in that GA document … their notes say it replaces Ozark Premier for home use.
Gurnies describes it as very productive… 120 lbs of fruit… you know I would be so happy with 1/2 or 1/4 of that. They also list details on disease resistance which seems to cover most of the common plum issues.
I might just try a combo of AU Roadside & Alderman… and graft a few others onto those… Superior, Toka, etc.
Does anyone have a vigorous Ruby Sweet plum tree they can give me wood from next winter? Wimpy sticks don’t work for me- someone sent me tiny wood for Early Golden last year and it was about the only J. plum grafts I did that didn’t take.
Ruby Queen is an extraordinary if not entirely reliable plum here and creates the most beautiful sauce I have ever seen. If chef’s ever found out about it it would command a premium price with restaurant sales.
I noticed that the full chart they listed showed both Ruby Sweet and AU Roadside as being (-2) on Bloom. Santa Rosa blooms March 11 in Byron GA… and Ruby Sweet and AU Roadside evidently average blooming 2 days earlier. They should be good pollination partners… blooming same time.
Santa Rosa (per the bloom charts above) is in the Earlier blooming groups…
Earlier than Toka, which is Earlier than Superior… which is Earlier than Alderman…
I am still thinking that the Later blooming Alderman may be my best choice to hopefully avoid some early frost issues… Those earlier blooming varieties may be great… but I might only get them 1 out of 10 years. Not good.
Perhaps I need to just plant a Alderman, and graft some Superior, BlackIce, Beauty… surly some of those would work.
If anyone here knows which of your Plum varieties bloom with Alderman… let me know please.
A few folks here reported Alderman being a very good plum for them in Zone 8a.
I would especially like to hear from you on what your pollination partner is for Alderman.
Or ever better, anyone in zone 7 that is growing Alderman.
Thanks
If you plan to do no spray for your plums, I think
you will be disappointed as plums get the same bug and disease issues peaches do plus black knot.
1 Like
@mamuang … appreciate those thoughts.
If it is impossible to grow and get good plum crop with no spray… then my plum trees would be doomed to the same fate as my peach trees.
When i had my other two jplums for 13 years here… i experienced no pest or disease issues… but that may have been because they so rarely fruited successfully.
In 13 years i got 2 or 3 small crops and 1 year both trees were loaded. Dont recall the varieties… but both started blooming mid Feb.
If i had J or JA cross that bloomed late March… i should get fruit more frequently… perhaps 50% of years. I could live with that.
That is the hope… i have. It may not work out.
The comments of another deep south east person above z8a are helping me to hang on to that hope a little.
Below… from @jaypeedee
…
I have Alderman and as grown here, I’d say it’s a very good plum. Furthermore, I find it vigorous, productive and strongly disease resistance. The open flowers seems to have above average frost tolerance. Alderman’s disease resistance has moved it up into my top tier of keepers. I have grown quite a few of the so called cold hardy types, such as La Crescent, kahinta, Pipestone, Black Ice, Waneta, Gracious, Ember, Underwood, Hanska, Purple Heart, Kaga, Pembina, Superior, Tecumseh, and Cocheo. The survivors are La crescent,Purple Heart, Alderman and Superior.
…
@jaypeedee … would love to hear your comments on possibly growing alderman in a no spray situation ? Possible and get some good fruit ? Or impossible ? Do you employ some type of extensive spray program to get good alderman fruit ?
Also would love to hear your best guess at which of your other plum varieties bloom with alderman. Does Superior and Alderman bloom at the same time in your location ? Or do you possibly have other later blooming jplums that pollinate your alderman ?
Thanks
1 Like
Over several years I have eliminated several varieties due to black knot. As of now my keeper list is Au Cherry, Au Rosa, Spring Satin, Odom, and Guthrie. If you figure out the frost problem I would like to know. Spring Satin is my earliest to ripen.
@Auburn … i have a section of north facing slope at my future new home location. Finding the later blooming plum varieties and putting it on that north slope (for a later spring wakeup) may be my best bet on the late frost issue.
Alderman… does appear to be one of the later blooming plums and is reported to do well in z8a.
Hopefully i can find a pollinator for it.
1 Like
@TNHunter
I would listen to the members who grow plums in the south like @Auburn and @jaypeedee. If you guys can grow plums in the humid south with no spray, I would be interested.
I used to grow several Japanese plums. They are alright. I prefer pluots over plums considering their growing challenges are similar but I prefer the taste of pluots. Spring Satin is tasty and early, both are pluses.
1 Like
I had a test this spring with 19F when the plums were blooming. The only plum that still set a full crop was Shiro. I don’t think bloom time is as important as blossom hardiness. Tomcot is another example of that, it is one of the better apricots for getting fruit but it blooms really early.
Some other plums this year and how they did with the 19F: Purple Heart set a nearly full crop, Satsuma set about 1/3 (i.e. little thinning needed), AU Producer similar, Weeping Santa Rosa only a few, Lavina a bit better than WSR, Laroda like WSR.
I agree with you. I am in zone 6 a. When I had Shiro tree, there was one year that we had unusually warm Feb followed by very cold March. Other stone fruit had their fruit buds killed but not Shiro. It flowered abundantly but it had no pollination partner so no fruit set.
Shiro is a cold hardy J plum both flower buds and the tree.
I don’t spray in my garden. Shiro was earlier plum variety in my yard, not only that the fruit size was big compare to other plums. And the predators ignored them because they had a lot of nectarines and apricots to eat. It’s a winner in my yard.
I had 4x1 pluot tree before, I only had one or 2 Dapple Dandy one year.
@scottfsmith … do you know if purple heart and shiro pollinate ? Perhaps a frost hardy dynamic duo ?
That would be a verry pretty pair of plums color wise and quite different.
No luck finding purple heart on pollnation charts.
I am still not quite sure on planting early blooming plums here. Last time it did not work out… one of my previous j plums was yellow the other purple… but no idea at this point the variety… they were obviously early bloomers… both started blooming mid Feb here.
If they can bloom that early… and withstand 19 degrees… i might just get a few plums from them.
Sorry no idea on pollination data there. Both of those plums are hybrids and the bloom overlaps so my guess is you will be ok.
I would just get the two and you can always add a graft of something else if it is not working.
1 Like
I agree with the theory about bud cold hardiness vs bloom timing. I have a waneta plum that bloomed very late this year, about the same time as my latest wild americana. It set several drupes, but they had severe attrition in april. This was a one year old graft, so that may be a factor too. Not a bad tasting plum, but nothing to go wild over either. Toka was very early for me, about 3 weeks ahead of waneta.
I had several plums try to rebloom this year about a month after their first bloom, might have been a stress reaction to the early March 16f cold snap. Perhaps partial girdling could induce this re-bloom. I will try it next spring on my early bloomers to see if i can replicate. I will also try stripping the buds on some branches in late feb.
Zone 7a NC.
@SoMtHomestead … if you are nearer the mountains than the coast… your z7a should be quite similar to mine.
Do you have Alderman plum ?
I would like to try a couple of the latest blooming J or JA plums too… perhaps Alderman / Waneta ? Or Alderman / Beauty.
Could test the cold hardy bloom vaeieties against the latest bloom varieties.
If i had both… that should really up my chances.
I am near the mountains of WNC. I do not have alderman, but it is on my list of scions to acquire this winter. I have spring satin planted last spring, so looking forward to seeing how it does next year.
One other rebloom hypothesis I would like to explore is related to chill hours. If new wood growth in the spring recieves enough chill hours, would that be a trigger for the new growth to throw blooms? Could you plant extremely low chill hour plums to (chickasaws) take advantage of this?
I have found that dangling a 100-watt lamp will work wonders in saving my Methley plums (my only plum tree) on most cold nights. Of course, it helps to have the tree within 100 feet of an electrical outlet. Usually, I have plenty of plums for fresh eating and canning.
The lamp saved my plums this March, but I got behind with the spraying and the worms got to them. Then the raccoons and tree-rats finished them off. Oh well…
Moral of my story - forget about a plum tree if you are not going to keep up with the spraying and keep the varmints away.
1 Like
@tennessean … i never sprayed my previous j plum varieties (13-14) years… and had no pest no worms no disease… nothing like brown rot.
Could be because they produced fruit so infrequently ??? We got one good crop off both trees in that timeframe… and 2 or 3 small crops.
I think at best plums (even these frost hardy blossom varieties)… may only produce for me 50% of the time.
Perhaps infrequent fruiting will help keep the pest and disease to a minimum.
If i absolutely can not grow them with no spray and get some good fruit… they will not last here.