I thin all my plums if they over set. Thinning the way Scott does will shake off your heaviest, largest fruit IMO- I use that method with young peaches when I don’t want any fruit.
If you don’t have time to thin the whole tree, thin a scaffold. Of course, you can only do what you can do within your own schedule and one can always do more with fruit trees.
My sun isn’t as strong as it is further south and the fruit is greatly improved in sugar with thinning here. How much depends on the variety, I thin Shiro quite a bit to give it more flavor because it tends to be so bland. 6-8" seems to help.
I’m grafting my huge Shiro over to other varieties because it actually isn’t really worth the effort or expense (I often have help thin) for its mediocre fruit, based on my subjection.
Thanks, Alan. Will thin today. It has been a busy holiday weekend.
In defense of Shiro, it is a good plum for starters. It is very precocious, fruits early and a lot. For newbies to plums, it is an encouraging sign. It is a good tasting plum comparing to store-bought plums.
I am sure when my Satsuma or my E. Plums bear fruit, I will really understand your comment about Shiro.
Mamaug, it is also a sturdy J. plum, which is useful from Z6 on down. Some of my favorite plums, like Satsuma and Santa Rosa tend to get cambium damage on my site, about Z6, although not usually fatal.
When I first tasted Shiro I thought it completely wonderful, it was my first plum here. It can still be quite good if you thin enough. Those first plums had lots of leaf to plum.
I have one that has set just an incredible number of plums this year. With my beach plums I just let them all stay because they are little more than berries anyway. Early Golden is a small plum but still much bigger than a beach plum.
@PharmerDrewee,
Not having fruit set usually means no good pollination.
Did it rain a lot during bloom time?
Do your trees have good pollination compatibility?
Did you have hard freeze at bloom time or post bloom?
I think I had some misfortunes you mentioned during bloom. Some leaf sprouts look fried so there was likely a freeze unless it’s a disease. There were plenty of pollinators buzzing around the flowers but we did have a lot of rain. I had Satsuma bloom followed by Ruby Queen a couple weeks later but there was definite overlap.
Two weeks is a very long spread for my plums at least. 8 of my pulots where in bloom before Satsuma woke up at about a tie with Shiro, Santa Rosa and Burbank followed. But the pulots finished a lot sooner and my Shiro Burbank and Satsuma have oddly strong petal adhesion making them look like still in bloom but there clearly expanding fruitlets.
@mamuang they are both J plums so I assumed they’d be ok. Are some J plums incompatible? My other J plum, Sorriso di Primavera, only formed 5 flowers so not very useful. I’m glad I got scions from you of other varieties to graft.
@lordkiwi Satsuma’s bloom was very staggered. I think the cooler weather slowed everything down so the flowers did not open all at once. There were still unopened flower buds on Satsuma when Ruby Queen was in full bloom.
Andrew,
I thought Ruby Queen is another one of those hybrids (some are stinger than the others).
In your situation, it could be that the timing of their blooms are not quite match and that your trees are still young. By next year, you’ll be complaining that your trees set too many fruit!!!
I have Satsuma, Ruby Queen, Early Golden, and Nadia.
We had almost ideal weather this year with an extended relatively warm, dry, sunny period while they were all in bloom.
Early Golden set a tremendous crop of fruit, Satsuma has set some, Nadia has set only a few (and it didn’t flower all that profusely). I need to check how much fruit Ruby Queen set.
Hi All,
My Beauty Plum has set a lot of fruits. Most of them are 3/4 ~ 1 inch size now. Is it still a good idea to thin them (is it too late)? I’ve never thinned the plums on this tree before.
