I’m fairly certain that windchill doesn’t count. Plants don’t generate their own heat like humans so the windchill isn’t applicable. I know that in the spring we are never concerned with windchill when fretting over blooms getting cold damage. We are only concerned with ambient temperature staying above freezing when it comes to trees and inanimate objects. Windchill will more quickly lower a trees temperature to that of the surrounding air, but not any lower.
Hi Rispa,
As you research the lineage of all types of plums your will find that the Myrobalan plum (cherry plum) is found in one of its many forms on each continent. So it’s quite possible that all P domestica and P Salicia are related in some way if you go back to early times. Even Luther Burbank used P. Cerasifera as well as P. Simoni to create his many hybrids of the Japanese plum. While none can say for certain that this is the case, I suspect that all types have inherited the genetics of P cerasifera at some point in time. This is why I consider it as a superior cross pollinator, especially for early blossoming plums as are the Asian plums!
This thread gives a bit more for your research.
Dennis
Rispa,
Perhaps someone nearer you has kept a blossom schedule similar to mine below for 2022:
2022 schedule:
Jan 7: Roadside Cherry plum flower buds swelling
Jan 7: Honeyberry flowers opening
Jan 15: Peach buds swelling, pink tips
Jan16: Fig tip buds breaking
Feb 6: peach buds nearly blossoming, plum buds not swelling yet
Feb 20: Sweet treat breaking bud
Feb 25: L1 summer grafts breaking bud!
Feb 27: L3 summer grafts breaking bud!
This spring I noticed that as my cherry plum went full blossom, so also did my last year grafts of: Shiro, Beauty, Ozark Premiere, and Methley. When I return home from vacation in Cancun this week, I can give you possibly several others that are in sync with P cerasifera
Dennis
Raintree and Bay Laurel both sell 4 in 1 pluots with 400 chills hours. I thought plums like Toka were asian plums?
Rispa
You can go to the members map to look up others close by to contact and see if they have variety suggestions
Dennis
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Satsuma, Santa Rosa, and Shiro. The order of flowering. But last year I had Shiro as a plum first, then Santa a Rosa, then Satsuma.
That’s part right,although they are a hybrid of Asian and American Plums.
flavor grenade has a bonus of covering 2+ months between hang time and cold storage. covers the entire end of the season by itself
. Here and I believe also in Houston it is a midseason crop.do you have a later season japanese plum or pluot recommendation?
In an average year I probably get no more than 50-100 hours of chill (10b) and I have to do a lot of thinning on my Santa Rosa plum. Sweet Treat pluerry also works well for me. I have Beauty grafted onto the plum tree, but it didn’t fruit last year, so fingers crossed that it flowers this year.
In whose climate? I have deciduous tree fruit ripening here from late May through October, and I expect the same holds for Houston TX.
I’m looking for a japanese plum or pluot specifically. I think I could go up to 3-4 weeks later than flavor grenade, in my climate, in most years. the only thing I see at retail is “flavor finale” and it’s only 2-3 weeks later
Keep in mind that order of fruiting (early, mid, late) of Prunus, Pomes, and other perennials varies by location and sometimes by year. For example, Dave Wilson charts are for Hickman CA. They are known to maintain order in Turlock CA but not in coastal influenced San Diego county.
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Do we know what the cause of the variation is? Sounds like I’ll have to just try likely candidates and see what happens ultimately.
Oh I found a clue! Anyone have Bob Randall’s most recent “Year Round Vegetables, Fruits and Flowers For Metro Houston”? I have the 12th edition from 2006 and it has ripening dates for many plums, but the problem is it’s missing some of the new ones. I’ll get a new edition next time I’m near one of the stores that carry it.
Here’s what I found:
May Ripening: Gulf Beauty, Gulf Blaze, Gulf Ruby, Gulf Gold, Randall (graftwood), Methley, Joe
June Ripening: Bavay’s Green Gage, Green Gage, Burgundy, Inca
July-Sept Ripening: Red Heart
Santa Rosa and Beauty are listed as pollinators, but their fruit time isn’t given.
For some reason Dapple Dandy, Flavor King, and Flavor Delight are listed as not recommended. I went to another section and it looks like it’s because no one has success due to low chill hours here. So maybe it’s a fluke of weather that people have had success lately. Then again there’s the person in Orlando with success, so maybe the trick with them isn’t traditional chill hours Looking for Florida low chill plum budwood. Anyone have more details about these hybrids?
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I had trouble with a 4x1 pluot tree, I finally removed the whole tree after 7-8 years, it’s a big tree too. I had a few Dapple Dandy and that’s it.
What else was on that tree?
This is what I ordered and planted.