This plum variety was recommended to me by my state extension fruit grower, anyone growing it?
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I don’t grow it, just wanted to mention that, like many Russian plum selections, Obilnaya is a hybrid of cherry plum and Japanese plum (P. cerasifera x P. salicina). Lavina is another such Russian hybrid available in the US. Specifically, Obilnaya was selected in the Nikitski Botanical Garden in Crimea in the 1960s, its parents are the Burbank plum and the Russian cherry plum cultivar ‘Tavricheskaya’. The cherry plum parentage makes it more hardy and robust than a typical Japanese plum. Russian sources describe its winter hardiness and disease resistance as average, but that’s estimate is probably in comparison to cherry plums and hybrids, not Japanese plums. It’s described as very productive, with fruit of good size (35-40 g) and good eating quality. Self-sterile, so needs a pollinator (a cherry plum or a Japanese plum) blooming at mid-season.
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What is the hardiness rating? I am always looking for zone 3/4 plums.
My extension agent mentioned that it produced high quality fruit and showed disease resistance in the zone 5a location.
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Russian-language sources don’t rate hardiness in terms of USDA zones. Among cherry plum/J. plum hybrids, Obilnaya is in the middle of the pack. It’s mostly grown in southern Russia, so probably hardy up to zone 5.
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Obilnaya is grown in the southern Russia, where it’s hardiness is rated as average, which is approximately zones 5-6. In the northern parts it is rated as not hardy enough. Cuban comet is a Russian plum available here. It is grown in northern Russia, zones 4 and possibly 3 and has good reviews.
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Anyone else tried Cuban comet?
I think it’s spelled Kuban Comet and I grafted a scion to my Flavor Supreme a couple years ago from Raintree Nursery,but no fruit yet.
If anyone wants to try this or others,I may be able to get some wood,at their Day of Classes in March. Brady
Yes, my mistake, it is supposed to be Kuban comet. I would be happy to try it, if you can get the wood.
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Hello, we have both Kuban comet and Obilnaya here in Vermont (zone 4B/5a?). Kuban Comet is hardier than Obilnaya at least bud wise, both are heavy producers, but the quality of Obilinaya is much higher than Kuban. Kuban is the first plum to ripen here, has a flash of flavor when you bite into it, but is watery, even so people like them when there are no other choices. Obilinaya is a mid season plum, almost black and good size with red coloring in the flesh, much better than Kuban, They color up long before they are ripe so don’t pick them to early.
Both are hardy to below -20 (-25?), but Obilinaya as failed to fruit a couple of times, while Kuban always fruits here.
Here is a link to the Canadian Praire fruit growing: http://publications.gc.ca/collections/collection_2012/agr/A53-1866-1991-eng.pdf
Eric
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Thanks for your input, Eric. You are quite the resource for northern plum growers! Please let me know if you @PlumHill ever decide to make scionwood available…
My extension agent also recommended Rosy Gage for early, quality fruit, as well as Gras Romanesc(thank you, Bob). There’s always another plum I want to add, that’s the fun of it, and it seems that my acquisitive spirit really kicks this time of year😀.
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Got an email from the extension agent, she offered me scionwood of Obilinaya and a couple others that have proven successfull from the acre of plums at the Highmoor research station. Since UC Davis isn’t distributing scion to non-acedemic requests I am especially grateful to have this resource available in-state. I may also assist the program with a plum breeding trial in the next couple years by hosting a block of seedlings at my place.
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I visited the University of Maine extension farm a couple days back to pick up my scions,
got to see their one acre block of plums, and also enjoyed viewing the immaculately trained apple blocks of differing rootstocks and management styles. Wish I could share some photos. I hope folks take advantage of their states’ resources, they are there for YOU!
Thank you state agriculture.
I’ve decided to make a few trees of Obilinaya on p americana in the nursery and also top-work a LaCrescent tree that has done more growing than fruiting, hopefully I will get a few fruit next year.
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When you top-work your plums, do you stub each of the main branches and graft onto them individually, or do you cut the main trunk horizontally and cleft graft a few sticks onto it?
I’ve done both ways, stumping the tree down to 2’ and cleft grafting was my first technique and it worked well enough. Nowadays I do it a little different; I always leave a low nurse limb or two ungrafted, use a combination of bark , cleft (in exposed windy locations), whip and tongue, and z graft depending on the scion/stock size. I think this helps the tree rebound from the surgery, and gets fruit sooner. Hybrid plums are pretty precocious anyways, I usually get a few fruit from second year grafts on top worked trees.
The tree I’ll graft over to Obilinaya is about 4" caliper, and has a couple good nurse limb candidates down low which I will retain, then the trunk goes up without much branching until it gets too tall, so I will most likely stub it and bark graft at 3-4’ up from the ground.
This tree got away from me and didn’t develop a good frame, so I’m starting over with a (hopefully) better variety.
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Tasted one of these at the extention farm when I went on a tour yesterday-what a great tasting piece of fruit! My sample was medium sized, purple skin which was very thin, delicate and had minimal sourness, meaty reddish amber flesh. The Obilinaja trees had already been harvested of a substantial crop, there were a few that had been missed, lucky for me.
Also got to try Rosy Gage, tasty while not totally ripe, the tree looked very productive. Castleton trees also looked great, somewhat dwarfy and loaded.
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