Hello All,
I’ve always found plums and apricots hard to grow because of fruit drop. The trees are mature and healthy, and I believe they have good pollination. Is there something I have been doing wrong? Should I be spraying, and if yes, with what? Thanks in advance for your responses!
Did you thin the fruit? If not thinned sufficiently, some apricots and plums tend to self-thin. That’s a way for the tree to adjust its load. Also, flowers that have not been properly pollinated can still make fruitlets that never develop and drop; this happens especially often with plum; these undeveloped plum fruitlets have yellowish color while normal ones are green.
In addition to what Stan mentioned, how certain you are that the varieties of plums you have are cross-pollination compatible?
Do they drop all the fruit or just some? Like other posters said its completely normal for trees to drop fruit if not thinned. Fruit drop can be s blessing. Dealing with broken branches is not fun.
Besides all mentioned if your fruit is infected with plum curcullo, fruit will drop.
Many threads on this site on how to deal with them.