im not sure there is such a single “sweetest” or “best for jam” plum.
It will mainly depend on your climate and growing situation.
Could you fill out your growing zone/climate? or mabey a rought estimate of your location? (county or nearest large city or state) you can do this on the profile part of the forum
And do you like the taste of japanse or EU plums more?
And if EU plums, which subtype? (egg shape, damsons, gages, mirabelles?)
Id start looking at green gages (reine claude verte)
And mirrabelle type (like mirabelle de nancy or bellamira)
im not sure what plums will grow well for you. It’s hard to “judge” your climate.
I would be afraid for a lack of sufficient chill hours for greengages.
My first bet would thus be a mirrabelle de nancy. They grow well in france. Which i would estimate to have similair climate to yours (chill hour wise)
ps: you seem to be more in a subtropical climate. But still have cool winters. EU plums might work for you. But they might not like your climate. Japanese plums i think can handle heat better? but others know more about those than me.
Hello, I have been to your town, which is historic and very beautiful. In Himachal I have only seen apples and pears growing, not many plums or apricots. I would try Mirabelles, because you have a lot of snow and cold that is needed to grow especially Euro plums.
Yes you are wright we more focus on growing apple and pear but last 1 or 2 we were focusing on growing some other varieties like plum. Because global warming effect our environment our winters are not so cold like old days or we also utilise our waste lands who is not suitable for growing apple.
Excellent. I wrote an article for Ecology Magazine on the Hill Stations. Shimla and Darjeeling are my favorites. Manali and Kullu were ok. Many beautiful trees and excellent apple juice! Please post pictures of your growing areas. Because of your winters the colder varieties of plums are excellent. Mirabelles are small, but very sweet the other sweet Euro plums that are excellent are the green Reine Claude Bavay and Reine Claude D’Oree. The latter is the sweetest and make incredible jam. You will like them. The mirabelle are very small and the Reine Claude plums are medium. I think the best jam making plum is the Damson, which is highly popular in the United States and England. But where you are they might be a bit tender. They are worth a try as it is a bigger, very deep purple skinned plum and excellent for jam making. Perhaps Oscar will also have some suggestions for you.
Do you have any government-based department/unit that provides advice or info for fruit farmers? If so, contact them and ask for advice so you can be prepared.
Plums are not as easy to grow as apples. They tend to have more diseases esp. if an area is humid. Since you are in higher elevation, maybe, your area is drier which is helpful.
You will need to grow plum varieties that cross pollinate one another and ripen in time before the weather turns cold.
@mrsg47 has good advice on varieties of Euro. However, there are a lot of Japanese/Asian plums that may do well for you.
Often, plums that make good jam are not the sweetest. They usually have other quality including tartness to make them good for jam.
My recent experience with European Plums… I purchased 2 in 2018, Mt Royal, Rosy Gauge (from Raintree Nursery). This is their 4th leaf and still no blooms. I don’t see any information on the Raintree website on how long it takes Eu Plums to produce fruit… In my One Green World catalog, they say 2-3 years…
I have had Japanese varieties in the past, but they bloomed way to early for me. Almost always had total crop failure because of hard frost after blooms. It seems like they did start blooming and fruiting much earlier than the Eu Plums.
I think the 2-3 years may be about right for the Japanese Varieties… but for the Eu Plums… it may be more like 4-5-6 years before you get a crop.
For me it is definitely going to be at least 5 years, possibly more.
I’m not sure what’s available to you. The sweetest plum I’ve ever had was the Toka plum, which is a hybrid of an American and a Japanese variety. It’s from South Dakota, and also seems to do well in my climate which can be pretty bitter. (Michigan). I don’t have one, but there is a vendor at our tiny town farmer’s market who has them each summer. I find them a bit TOO sweet, without enough of a tartness in the skin to balance, but if you’re looking for sweet, it might be one to look into.
A lot of the “better” EU plums are grown in france and also netherlands
So me and @mrsg47 are lucky that way
Reine Claude Verte (likely the oldest green gage known)
One of if not the oldest green gauge know is likely the Reine Claude Verte. (we often cal it RCV)
Some sources say Reine Claude Doree is the same. Some note small differences.
Almost all literature says Reine Claude Verte to be “superior” to all other plums.
Although tastes differ ofc.
They do however are hard tree’s to get producing. And have relativly small fruit (30 gram 32-42mm are noted in some sources)
They seem to get more productive when own rooted. And they readily root on their own. (when rivers flooded plum orchards in the winter, all RCV rooted on branches)
See the green gage sources below.
If it’s for own use. Id say “search for a Reine Claude Verte or Reine Claude D’Oree (doree)”
For more reliable production some more comercial plums similair are
Reine Claude d’Althann
Reine Claude d’Oullins
Mirrabelle plums might also be intresting.
Mirrabelle de nancy comes to mind. It has small plums though. Roughly 12grams or half greengage.
Bellamira is a modern larger version. roughly twice the weight.
other intresting eu plums
Opal is another plum thats highly popular here. And it is really tasty and early season.
Belle de thuin might also be intresting. It’s really large. roughly 3 green gages in weight.
Czar or (the Czar) is know for being a really strong plum. So if your growing conditions are challanging for EU plums it might be worth a shot.
I have little experiance with japanse plums. So you’ll have to look to some one else for advise on those.
If there is little know/experiance with plums in your region.
Id recomend a shotgun approach and just try out a lot of different plums from different “groups”
Sources/links/further reading (use google translate)
Lots of dutch info/research on plums and gagues
ill post some links in the rest of this post. Those are mainly in dutch (due to extensive growing of green gauges in the netherlands a lot of research and writing has been done on them and other plums)
google translate
You can use google translate to translate. Translation to english i checked and looks really good. If in doubt about the translation of a specific word or thing. You can ask me to have a look and translate
I explained in this post how you can get google translate to work. I especially like the chrome plugin.
This source might intrest you if your looking for a specific trait or reference
page 21 are the plums. (there are also pages for other members of the prunus family)
You might also want to look into plum rootstocks
I think the netherlands actually exports a lot of rootstocks to india.
Some rootstocks for sale here are
-Sint julian A. Quite large. but really strong. Can root sucker
-Sint julian “wangenheim” A seedling from controlled pollinated seed sourche. No suckering problems. Is also used in germany. And is slightly smaller then Sint julian A. Some variability is still there due to it being seedlings. There are tissue cultured selected clones of wangenheim.
-wavvit
-weiwa
Wur S766 Prunus spinosa. Is a verry intresting new rootstock. That seems adapted to many soils.
I have heard some anecdotal disease problems about the krymsk series.
For larger tree’s id go for Sint julian A
For smaller tree’s id go Wur 766 or wangenheim or their in vitro selected clones wavvit and weiwa
