Lavina Plum

Anyone know if Lavina plum variety is self fertile?

No, it’s self-sterile.

Any idea what variety will pollinate Lavina? I have a Santa Rosa Plum.

I’m not sure when it blooms for you, but any variety of cherry plum or Asian plum that has overlapping bloom period should work. Santa Rosa has a long bloom period so it likely will be a good pollinator for Lavina.

Thank you!

Here is some info about Lavina that I compiled from Russian-language sources:

Lavina (Лавина, translates as Avalanche), is a variety of cherry plum hybrid (P. cerasifera x P. salicina, also known as “Russian Plum”). Fruit large for a cherry plum, 30 g, yellow, with dark red blush, glossy. Flesh yellow, of medium firmness, juicy. Stone separates well from the flesh. Flavor sweet-sour, aromatic, balanced, very good (comparable to good Asian plums). Ripens in mid-late season. Self-sterile, pollinators: varieties of cherry plum and Asian plum. Productivity is high and regular, average yield is 27 kg per tree. High winter hardiness and excellent regeneration ability. Average drought tolerance. Tree of medium size and vigor. Resistant to brown rot and shot hole disease.

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I took note of my bloom times last spring. Lavinia was towards the beginning, close to Satsuma, Flavor Supreme, and two cherry plums, Sprite and Delight.

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Bob, when Lavina fruits for you relative to other plums? I’ve seen contradictory descriptions.

I’m not sure. I may have gotten 1-2 fruits 2 years ago (though I may be confusing it with Laroda). Both of them were hit hard by a late frost last year (16-17F in early April, during bloom). I actually had a few survive in each tree, but then bugs and animals took them out before they were ripe. Maybe this year I’ll have a better idea. The trees are certainly big/mature enough to provide plenty of fruit.

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Thanks for posting this info. From Scott’s positive review, Cummin’s promotional description, and this report of disease resistance it seems Lavinia is certainly worth a shot, particularly in northern locations.
Last spring I cut the center out of my Santa Rosa which had failed to produce more than a handful of fruit in its 8 years and grafted in some Lavinia a friend generously supplied. The grafts took, grew with vigor and might have set a few flower buds that I will be watching like a plum eating hawk. I was also able to harvest a small amount of scion that will be used to make a few single variety trees on p americana roots.
I’d love to see some fruit pictures to tide me over til mine bear…

Here are some pictures from the internet:

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Mine never looked anywhere near that yellow. Also they don’t have a seam like that. It could be related to the location though.

For those of you trying this plum, the biggest challenge is waiting long enough. Like Satsuma they color up many weeks before they are fully ripe. If they are at all crunchy they are far from ripe. They also need very heavy thinning, that picture is accurate on what you get if you don’t thin enough.

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Here was Rob’s when it fruited.

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Thanks for the eye candy…
Thinking through the choice of rootstock, I wonder how it will perform on prunus americana(which I have in-house)? I might pick up some myrobalan rootstocks for the European plums I plan to graft, and could use that for Lavinia as well but concerned that would give even more vigor to the resulting tree…
At some point I might need to look into dwarf rootstock for plums!

Is there such a thing? :slight_smile:

None of my plums are staying small. Even trees on Citation (like Laroda) get huge. Lavinia is on Penta, a new Italian rootstock which also seems particularly vigorous.

I just did a quick search on it and it seems that Penta is compatible with peach, nectarine, apricot, plum and almond. I’d like to try it for peaches or apricots, but it hasn’t suckered any (and the below chart says it doesn’t).

I thought the chart on this page was funny. Comparing how dwarfing the plum rootstocks are. From 90% to 130%…

http://mcgrathnurseries.co.nz/fruit-trees/rootstocks/plum-rootstock-height-chart

Maybe Pixy or Krymsk 1 would produce a somewhat smaller plum. I have a few Euro’s on K1, which do seem a bit smaller and some K1 rootstocks that I grafted to last year (plum, apricot, and peach).

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Bob
How old is you Lavinia on Penta? I looked into the Penta rootstock after I declined the President plum I was going to get from Cummins, they had it listed as pumiselect originally. I think it was a year after you got that tree. I don’t remember where I read the paper on rootstocks but it said that the scion on the Penta rootstock really doesn’t start taking off and growing very tall til the 4th or 5th year and then on. Sorry I have no link for you on this.

I planted in April 2014. The tree was huge, aprox 1" caliper. I emailed Cummins to ask if they grew it, or it was from CA. They were proud to say that they grew it and that the large amount of rain the previous summer had helped a lot. Once I planted it, it grew very quickly. I’ve been hacking it back quite a bit, but I think it got to 15+ feet during the 2nd year. Yes, they didn’t have Penta as a choice in their system, so they were using Pumiselect for it.

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I was recommended Marianna or Krymsk 1 as dwarfing stocks for either euro or hybrid plums by my extension agent, and I’d lean towards the K1 because the Russian origin surely implies it would be hardy in my location.

The above link lists Marianna at 120% the size of a seedling. I think Raintree calls it semi-dwarf, but it sounds pretty big to me. I think K1 will be more dwarfing.

Lavina seems to be particularly vigorous, I had problems getting it under control after I grafted it. The stock had a Laroda on it and I had a hard time letting the Laroda get enough space. So it got moved to another tree.

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