Plum crack hose

True Valor plums suffered very little cracking while Empress in a better location lost half of its fruit to it. These are my September main crop E. plums and I’d shifted to Empress in my nursery from Valor for fruit in that season. This is the first season in the decade I’ve been fruiting Empress where Valor showed more value. Empress tends to produce larger fruit, although Valor has good size and that may be the difference about cracking. Empress is a more precocious and reliable cropper. Both produce delicious, high brix fruit on a good year.

Coe’s Golden Drop seems like a slightly later Green Gage and cracks like it. Midland looks more promising although its grafts lost vigor this year, which was to some extent a problem with many European plum trees in my nursery and orchard- I’m not sure what’s the cause. Sometimes leafhoppers stop their growth during summer and even when I try they can be difficult to stay on top of with pesticide, but by now they should be done and trees would normally be putting out a late surge of growth, but it’s not happening.

Glad you mention Coe’s. I thought it would not crack or crack just a bit because I wo’t ripe for almost a month. I was wrong. Almost all of them crack, not yet rot.

I am still of the opinion that it’s a good idea to start with varieties proven to perform well in our climate, and then start exploring the more exotic. Eric of Plumhill farm has been growing a huge collection of varieties commercially for many years and his evaluations might be of particularly good use to you. I can e-mail you his list if you want. Every variety that he sent me at least crops well here.

Would you mind posting his list here so everyone could benefit from it?

1 Like

I also wonder how @PlumHill is doing this year. It is extremely wet year.

I don’t know how to get the file here but I will try downloading it and see if I can. Nope, I cannot and this paste job is the best I can do. The info is all here as first number is for production, second, taste and third hardiness. 1-5, 5 being best.

European Plums Production Taste Hardiness Japanese Plums/hybrids Production Taste Hardiness Peaches Production Taste Hardiness
1 Starks Blue 4 2 4 Shiro 5 2 4
2 Early Laxton 4 3 4 Ozark Premier 3 4 2 Starks Yellow 5 2 4
3 PP 6995 5 3 4 Comet de Kumetz 5 1 5
4 Mt Royal 5 2 5 Methley 5 3 4
5 Fellenburg 5 4 4 Toka 4 3 4
6 Long John 4 3 4 Kaga 4 3 4
7 Early Blue 5 2 5 Gracious 5 3 4
8 NY71 5 3 5 Surprise (may be Kaga) 4 3 4
9 Castleton 5 3 5 Alderman 4 4 3
10 General Hand Purple Heart 5 5 3
11 Early Transparent Gage Early Costello 4 4 3
12 Ersinger 5 4 5 kahinta 5 3 4
13 Pearl 2 Ptistin #5 4
14 Empress 5 5 5 Pembina 5 3 5 Seedlings 4 2 5
15 Alabaster 3 4 4 Pipestone 5 3 5
16 Cambridge Gage Red heart 1 3 2
17 Imperial Epinese (not?) Starks Delicious 4 3 4
18 Hungarian Red 3 3 4 Red Glow 3 2 4
19 Opal 5 4 4 Superior 4 4 5
20 Kirkes Blue 4 4 4 Marisopal
21 Peach Plum 3 3 4 Obil’naja 5 4 4
22 Jefferson (blue prune) 3 4 3 Rema 5 3 3
23 De Montford 4 4 4 Au Auburn 3 3 3
24 Schoolhouse 5 3 5 Rose Marie 4 5 3
25 Mirabelle De Metz 3 4 3 Formosa 3 5 2
26 Mirabelle de Nancy 2 4 2 Sumumo 4 4 4 Hardiness is determined by how many trees have died, and how often they have not fruited due to weather
27 American Mirabelle 4 5 5 Early Golden
28 Oullins Gage 5 4 4 Satsuma (not?)
29 Seneca 3 4 4 Wickson
30 Royal de Vilvoorde 3 5 3 Duarte
31 Queen Anne 3 2 2
32 Yakima 3 3 3
33 Rosey Gage 4 5
34 Catherine 2 5 4
35 Great Yellow 5 5 3
36 Jefferson gage 3
38 Valor 5
40 Stanley 4 2 4

3 Likes

BTW, the Fellenberg graft was as bad as any Euro for cracking.

I wonder besides Plumhill who has American mirabelles.

1 Like

I do, but it is not a healthy graft and I don’t know if there is any usable wood. It bore tiny, insanely sweet fruit this year.

I wasn’t planning on growing plums (stone fruit in general to reduce spraying in general), but based on this list that would be my pick for a one of to start.

Plumhill posted that list in one of plum threads a while back. That’s how I became interested in Empress.

Plums are pain. Worse than peaches. For ne black knot is the hardest to control.

Out of all the fruits discussed in this forum, I’ve found the most gripes about peaches and plums, that’s for sure. Probably more frustration than praise overall, but for the “good years”, I envy descriptions of the fruit with how sweet and juicy everyone says homegrown versions are.

2 Likes

How right you are. Once you get the ‘bug’ of fruit growing, you really believe there are no limits, chemicals and all. Finally after leaving zone 7a for 9 a-b, the difference is the heat, the soil, and far less humidity. Great for peaches, apricots and plums but not great for apples even though many are grown here. Oh, cherries too!

1 Like

I’m having a very good year. Which is amazing as I can only do about six hours a week gardening which is mostly watering. Rain is average here. I just grabbed a Flavor King too see how it is. Almost ripe crunchy and delicious. All I have left is pluots. No splitting here all year. Well maybe three or four. I have had to give away tons of plums and pluots. I tasted Arctic Jay for the first time. Extremely sweet, beautiful markings in this fruit. I liked it a lot. Big too. So I have five or six pluot cultivars left to harvest. Pest pressure was very low this year. Oh I have Indian free to harvest yet too.


6 Likes

My Coe’s. Almost all cracked.

This has been a disastrous fruit growing year for me. It is going to rain again today.

1 Like

Coe’s seems so much like Green Gage that it’s no surprise it cracks.

All my Euro cracked pretty badly this year. French Improved, Mirabelles, fake Valor, Vision, Coe’s. The only one that did not crack was Pearl. It is a soft plum.

Possibly, the softer the texture of a plum, the less likely it is to crack. I have an unknown J plum next to Mirabelles. That J plums did not crack at all. Its texture was soft and very juicy.

Nice looking J plum that set heavily and no crack!!

1 Like

A lot of my Castletons cracked but quite a few didn’t, but it’s in a poor location. So far only 20% or so of my Valors have cracked in locations where other varieties cracked a lot more

I think part of the problem is focusing on Scott’s favorites or other people who grow in different conditions or haven’t been growing fruit in their own for more than a decade. Start with varieties Cornell recommends that are already being grown by commercial growers to some degree, or start with the recs of a local grower that has lots of experience with a very wide range of varieties.

Eric grows in different conditions than I do, but his recs were useful. However, this was an unusually cracky season- usually we have more drying out periods so its hard to compare varieties susceptibility. Nectarines can have a problem cracking and the first season it cropped Red Gold cracked like crazy and I had little hope for the variety. Ever since it has been my best producer of my best yellow nectarines devoid of any cracking. This year also, so I now feel confident to recommend it in my area- after 10 years of production.

Of course the weather we’ve had for the last 10 years may not be what we are facing in the future. Evaluations are never completely settled in this climate.

I had a total of one Coes on my graft. It didn’t crack, but I wasn’t super impressed with it. Not bad- mild, 16 brix.

I see the similarity, other than the gage being different shaped. My Late Transparent Gage didn’t crack and set a massively heavy load. The kids liked them- 15 brix and mild flavor.

I’m not sure how many (Geneva) Mirabelles I lost, but I only saw one left on the tree a couple days ago. I think there were at least a handfull a month or so ago, but one of the recent storms may have claimed them.

Of the plums in the above pic, I liked them in reverse brix order. The Late Muscatelle was best, Jam Session 2nd (small but not bad). The 21 brix Geneva Mirabelle wasn’t bad, but didn’t have a ton of flavor beyond the brix. I wouldn’t refuse them, but the others were better (and quite good).

I’ve been picking Vision, which has been very good. Large and around 20 brix. I’ve lost some to yellow Jackets / damage, but the remaining ones are very good.

Those are Jam Session on the right in the above pic.

I’ve been scavenging the grapes- a few decent ones per bunch. But the ones that are good are quite good. Jupiter is in the high teens for brix, with Faith around 20. Both are good with Faith a bit better in both flavor and texture.

4 Likes

I think the trick is to focus first on varieties already known to perform well in our climate, that are produced by at least some commercial growers. I had very little cracking on my Valor plums but Green Gage and Coe’s were mostly a mess. Empress has about 50% cracking or otherwise rotting before reaching ripeness so far (they still aren’t ripe) as did Castleton. The weird season has reduced the consistency of high quality, and many of my Valors are shriveling before reaching an amber color of their flesh, which happens once they achieve high brix. The ones that do have amber flesh are quite good, but only a small percentage have gotten there while still being firm, which is when they taste their best. Never-the-less, I’d rather have soft but sweet plums than firm ones that don’t get up the brix. E. plums need to get up to about 19 to be worth growing for me.

I’m hoping quality continues to improve as we wrack up more days without rain, but I wish the nights were cooler. I think that cool nights raise brix and improve fruit quality. They certainly reduce brown rot pressure and my fruit has no active fungicide on it and hasn’t for a couple of weeks.

1 Like