hey folks. my black ice flowered profusely then seemingly dropped all its blooms, or so it seemed. went by it yesterday and it had 5 nearly fully ripe fruit. i ate 2 and they were absolutely delicious but werent completely ripe so im giving the rest a few more days. i saved the pits to try growing out. its the only plum fruiting so it should grow true to seed correct?
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It might depend what pollinated the black ice. They need a pollinator apparently.
From my understanding "I think?’ the seed could be a cross between the black ice and it’s pollinator, or could be more black ice, or more pollinator . What other plums do you suspect are the pollinators for your black ice.
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Black ice is supposedly partly self fertile, so hypothetically if nothing else is blooming it might grow true
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Even if it is self-pollenated the seedling could show varying traits especially given that it is a hybrid plum. The seedling might be a good plum though.
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its the only plum i have and i read its partially self fertile. i have a Canadian plum grafted to it but it didnt bloom this spring.
If it did pollinate itself, you could end up with a true to seed result. various self fertile Prunus are often true to seed. What [Cgardener] said might be true as well being a hybrid. It’s well worth the trial, because you may end up with something special, but also could end up with something ordinary.
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You might have a American plum growing wild nearby.
I have a Black Ice, and it routinely blooms but bears no fruit. It could be an age issue – both Black Ice and a neighboring Alderman planted nearby (both in 2015) bore their first small crops this year. The Black Ice set a very small crop (less than a dozen) but those all disappeared before ripening – maybe squirrels or birds. The Alderman ripened a dozen or so. So in 8 years I have seen almost no fruit on the Black Ice, despite profuse blooms, so I have no reason to believe that it is self-fertile. But again, if the standard size tree needs to be 8-10 years old before bearing its first crop, the issue may just be young age.
Your best bet would be to plant some pollinating varieties such as LaCrescent or Toka nearby or, if you are pressed for space, to graft some scions of a pollinator to the tree.
Beware of Black Knot, if that’s an issue for you there. My Black Ice has frequent strikes, which had required me to remove affected branches. Alderman has been immune. If BK is not an issue there, then you’re lucky.
If you want to replicate Black Ice, you might be better off buying cheap suitable rootstock trees and grafting. Maybe Fedco can help.
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knock on wood, b k hasnt struck yet and im surrounded with chokecherry full of it. this tree set 3 fruit last year in its 2nd year and 5 this year. they all set on the most bottom branches so im thinking it could be self pollinating. wild plums are very rare here. ive only come across one on old farmland so it could have been planted by the farmer decades ago.im hoping the Canadian plum grafted on there blooms next year and i get a large fruit set. i may source some toka scions to graft as well.
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I’ve been researching Black Ice for the last couple of days to see if it is something which might work in the Deep South. So far I haven’t stumbled on the research papers that likely went with it in the original University of Wisconsin research program. However, the one nursery reference which identified its breeding program origins and its date says that it is part sand cherry which is a subarctic Prunus species. Anyway, it’s a hybrid and all seedlings will be different and will reflect different aspects of its parentage provided the seed was a product of a sexual process which is not always the case with plums.
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I think I remember it’s a hybrid of ‘Z’s Blue Giant’ japanese plum and ‘Oka’, which is a hybrid of sand cherry and plum, Hansen said ‘Oka’ was mostly prunus besseyi. I wouldn’t worry about sand cherry, it’s native to Great Plains, loves hot summers. Prunus besseyi also relies on not just chill hours to break dormancy but also accumulated heat units, so it can do well in low chill climates. High humidity it doesn’t like.
mines been in ground for 3 years. i really like the fruit taste/ size but it hasn’t given me a full crop yet. i grafted a Canadian plum and brookcot apricot on it but
the c. plum hasn’t flowered yet. so far no disease issues at least here in the north. i was worried about its susceptibility to black knot as im surrounded with chokecherry infected with it. plan to graft toka to it for a pollinator this spring.
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Thanks for the information. The combination of heat and humidity is the deal breaker with many plums for Georgia. Any plant in SE Georgia must tolerate being wet all night, every night with 9 month growing season, nighttime temps in the 70s and 80s during the summer and rain several times a week in July and August except during droughts. Here the grass doesn’t dry out from dew until about 12pm.
I don’t actually know how much black knot pressure I actually have. I tried a European plum once, and I had to cut some black knot out of it one time, but it was bacterial canker that killed it.
As far as non-cultivated Prunuses on or around my property, the only one is Carolina Cherry (P. caroliniana) which I’ve never seen black knot on. I have seen it on black cherry, P. serrulata, which I eliminated from the property a long time ago. None of my southern plum varieties have ever had an issue with it at all, so far, knock on wood. The two huge disease issues here are bacterial stem canker and bacterial leaf scald. Brown rot is also a big issue on the fruit of susceptible strains.
I will say that bacterial canker killed even the supposedly highly resistant Asian strains in my yard like Black Ruby, until I learned the trick of grafting everything onto Chickasaw plum cultivar rootstock. Most nurseries put plums on a peach or peach hybrid rootstock which here almost immediately gets hit by peach stem borers quickly followed by bacterial stem canker. While chickasaw cultivars will get borers, they don’t usually get very far and are easily treated.
If I get Black Ice I will high graft it onto an N.C. McKibben (Chickasaw cultivar) rootstock. But I’m still going back and forth on the idea. I have very limited space for testing iffy varieties. But I would love to have a good red-fleshed black plum.
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Black Ice grows very well in Middlr Tennessee.
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