Prunus Serotina Success! Grafting Plum on Timber Cherry!

[Trav]

After grafting 17 varieties and species onto a prunus Serotina, 1 survived, and well!
My only complaint is that cultivar varieties often produce enough hormone to suppress suckering, this does not, but as an interstem, it doesn’t need to.

I believe it is a Mirabelle plum, but it’s possibly a myrobalan plum cultivar, and it’s definitely on prunus Serotina, I checked that a lot! (Leaves in last photo)

This was taken in fall 2024 with almost 2 seasons of growth, not any care since July 2023, when I cut off all the other branches with grafts, fortunately it was one of the lowest branches on the tree.
I will try to get new photos now

Mirabelle on prunus Serotina:
(Possibly a myrobalan cultivar)

I should be embarrassed about the lack of pruning, but I am in Russia now and getting back and forth from the US is not easy.

In any case you should be able to see from second to last photo here, that the branch above the yellow flag (Mirabelle plum) is still holding leaves, and obviously different from all the other branches.

[MinnesotaApricot]

Great work! You’re advancing public understanding of graft compatibility with this common wild rootstock. From other reports, plums seem to be generally incompatible or poorly compatible. Be sure to post pictures and tasting notes when you get fruit, so that the forum can help identify the exact cultivar, enabling others can copy your pairing.

[evilpaul]

The tape in the grafting picture looks like it says “GOL / PLU” or “GOR / PLU”, so Golden/Gold or something else? Of course there’s yellow cherry plums and Mirabelles, and I can’t tell the two apart, so yeah.

Awesome to see there’s something more edible than any Serotina I’ve ever tasted that can be grafted to them.

[Trav]

So here are basically the full details on my ~30 scion experiment on 2 Prunus Serotina and 3 species grafted on Prunus Padus.

Here is the plum I was talking about, Mirabelle, but possibly myrobalan cultivar probably, I couldn’t find a new picture, it was grafted in July 2023 and survived 2 winters.
I also have a 4 inch diameter top worked prunus Padus with the same Mirabelle graft, and it’s huge! T had 4 feet of new growth and lots of branching, in the first season and much bigger now, even though it’s competing with suckers.

IMG_20230617_172530
100% Successful:
Mirabelle (or whatever this pingpong ball plum is) on Padus is doing great, And on prunus Serotina the only winner in my test. Both survived (100%) and are growing quickly.

These might possibly work out, but no recorded success yet:
1 Japanese plum and 1 peach scion survived for a while on the other tree out of ~30 scions on 2 Serotina and one Padus (birdcherry) trees.

All plums leafed out on both frameworked prunus Serotina frankentrees and on a larger topworked prunus Padus.
All peaches except one scrawny scion are leafing out well.
Almonds, I had terrible grafting material but they leafed out and grew a bit before dying, which was pretty good for the scrawny twigs trimmed off newly bought trees from the nursery.

Japanese plums: Santa Rosa (1 was still alive after a month and a half and maybe survived on the small Serotina) and Burbank (got eaten by ducks or turkeys)

Bush plum, specifically Nanking cherries, most died from an unidentified mold.
American plums: sweet unknown variety

Peaches - Red Haven (1 survived for quite a while, actually it might still be alive on the second tree, the rest of the peaches failed on 2 trees), Belle of Georgia, and I believe Hale Haven

Some hope:
Almond NC-1seedling is growing well, all in one almond does not look like its working but it was bad material pruned off a just planted tree.

Cherries
Some cherry grafts died immediately some layer longer then died on the Frankenprunus trees which are Serotina. Some Survived on the prunus Virginiana along with American plum.

Just plain dead:
Apricots: Red-Yellow and Ilona varieties, all 7 grafts shriveled and died, granted the material was not great, again pruned off of just planted trees, but looks like a solid no for apricot on Serotina.

Note:
I think my apricot and almond grafting material was pretty bad so it might be worth trying them again.

[Trav]

It says “Gary’s Plum” he bought the house with the plum trees there already. I can get some pictures of the trees.
He didn’t know what Mirabelle plums were, and I didn’t know when I got to the cuttings, but the description matches in my opinion.
They’re extremely suckering from the roots, and even far from the trees, he has 3 large ones and assumes that at least 2 are actually the same tree even though they’re 15 and 25 feet apart in a straight line.

They make ping-pong ball sized, yellow, candy-sweet, spherical plums.

And I also dug up a lot of the suckers and planted in places around my parents’ property too.

Here’s a photo of this plum (Mirabelle probably) grafted onto what’s supposed to be an Italian plum that had never made fruit, and I was trying to give it a pollinator.

[Trav]

I don’t know what happened with this smaller Prunus Serotina tree yet:
Japanese plums: Santa Rosa (1 was still alive after a month and a half and maybe survived on the small Serotina) and Burbank (got eaten by ducks or turkeys)

Peaches - Red Haven (1 survived for quite a while, actually it might still be alive on the this tree, the rest of the peaches failed on both trees), Belle of Georgia, and I believe Hale Haven.

I will try to get updates, but there was some hope for these two.