This bush Sand Plum native to our frost prone dry kansas prairie is amazing. Producing like this in spite of our late freeze that killed my reliance peach blooms and damaged the pears etc. An amazing wild crop. They get sweet and tasty right before or at drop so the best ones for fresh eating are often on the ground. The tart ones make great jelly. Few disease or pest problems i have never seen black knot or things like that. I really should explore more and introduce the best selection i can find selected for bigger fruit and latest bloom time/best crop in bad freeze years. Then we could test them in more humid climates etcā¦
18 Likes
What does it taste like? Its a very pretty fruit.
2 Likes
Mildly/moderately sweet, good flavor. More flavor, and less sweet, than like a ripe store-bought plum. Soft flesh, very juicy. When ripe. I prefer the flavor over store plums.
9 Likes
Nice looking fruit. If you need someone to trial some selections in Maine Iām your guy 
. Although Iām sure someone has trialed them in a similar climates in the past? The lack of black knot really intrigues me.
4 Likes
Hey that sounds like a great idea! Lets do it! I am going to gather some seeds 
2 Likes
Definitely my favorite jelly!
3 Likes
Those Look pretty solid the ones I find have pure goo inside, but I love them
also the skin is thick and dark,
but do not get that many I think other people get to them though.
I havenāt yet but
Ever Dry them could with a oven set at 200 all day.(8 hours)
2 Likes
After 10 years or so of frustration and no fruit from various European and Japanese hybrid plums, I removed/abandoned them all, and rely only on native Chickasaw plums (and the āGuthrieā selection, grafted onto suckers from my larger/yellow-fruited local selection.
Yeah, I get some PC, but brown rot has been minimal, black knot has not been a problem.
4 Likes
We have a similar plum on the beaches of the East Coast called beach plum. No black knot, and Iāve heard PC isnāt much of an issue if at all. Weāll see how my bushes do. Itās biggest downside is that it tends to not bear every year, whether itās going biennial, variable pollination success, or some other factor. Itās also definitely more of a processing plum, but Iāve found some that are great for fresh eating. @Everett those would be worth trying in your location as well. There are good sources for seedlings (NH State Nursery) and āimprovedā seed lines (Oikos Tree Crops) where you can get them on the cheap. They would probably hate Kansas, as they seem to need coolish summers.
@PaulinKansas6b do the sand plums suffer from off years?
1 Like
Jay, I had a couple of beach plums from OIKOS. They grew OK here in KY but were not as tall as the ones I remember seeing on Plum Island (yeah, that one!). Small tart fruits with not much pulp, but I can see how they would make a fantastic jelly! One died, so the other had no pollenizerā¦ bloomed annually for years afterward, but never again set fruit; I guess the Chickasaws nearby didnāt bloom in synch with it. I finally eradicated it, but it took several years to get rid of all the suckers.
2 Likes
Thanks. I actually just planted 2 beach plum from fedco this spring and they seem to be growing nicely so far. Iād love to hear how they do for you!
2 Likes
Some patches are different strains and bloom several weeks apart and some patches are more frost prone than others. The ones i am watching that best survive late frosts seem to produce heavy every year without alternate bearing. I want to keep better record of these things going forward, there are so many patches in the community.
2 Likes
I have heard the fruit size can be small. When I lived on Long Island, NY, the ones Iād find there where about the size of a cherry with a similar pulp to pit ratio, but maybe those were exceptions to the rule! I have a bunch of seedlings of Oikosā Nana strain, so Iām curious to see what comes of it. Worst case scenario, it would be easy to make jelly. Iāve also seen they can make a nice substitute for sloe plums form making sloe gin and liqueurs, which would also be very easy regardless of the amount of flesh. I picked the Nana strain because the small size makes it easy to tuck in odd spots that I couldnāt make work for much else.
2 Likes
Nice! We may have to start a beach plum thread if there isnāt already one.
2 Likes
There are a few threads already which has some good info. I hadnāt heard that they donāt get black knotā¦in fact I have read the opposite but we shall see soon. Black knot is a major plum problem in my location.
2 Likes
Yeah, I found those pretty quickly. I sure hope thereās little to no black knot. Thatās a lot of the reason Iām choosing not to grow Euro or Asian plums. Just seems like too much trouble. And yet Iām choosing to grow apricots and peaches, so go figure.
1 Like
@jcguarneri Yeah the relative isolation out here, or dry climate, could help with disease, ive never spotted knot, but hopefully Everett can evaluate these seed i send him if things go good, maybe they are super resistant but i bet his environment will be a great test.
I am only growing knot resistant Euros, hopefully their resistance combined with this sunny dry climate will spell success. I really want Honeysweet, its pretty rare yet. But I just got Kenmore it has a great resistant reputation.
3 Likes
to be clearā¦ I never claimed that Chickasaw plums were immune to black knotā¦ just that it had not been a problem for me (at least not yet).
3 Likes
Iāve only heard of Prunus besseyi called sand plums; these look more like American plum or some other Prunus. Is the term used generically for wild plums now?
1 Like
It is a very old term everyone around here, and their grandma, use for these native kansas short bush plums. They often grow on sand hills, and in sandy upland and high prairie pastures here, literally. The local national wildlife refuge info center display signs also call them sand plums. Also grow on bottomland, but another taller american plum also grows in the bottoms, which is less drought hardy and also at least the patches I know about tend to be more frost prone.