The best test is the yeast (white stuff) will come off in a circle on the bottom so the very bottom will look darker. If the yeast is off most of the plum it is getting overripe. You can pick them a bit early, maybe up to a week before they are optimal will still allow them to counter ripen well.
I picked a few of mine last weekend as some early ones were ripe enough for jam. This weekend there should be a lot more.
@tonyOmahaz5 @mamuang @IL847 @Ahmad I have to admit I am not a big fan of plums. It could be that I never had a good plum bought from stores and orchards.
But I grafted 2 pluots flavor supreme and flavor king on my sweet bagel peach this year after read a lot of praise for these 2 pluots on this forum.
Can you guys give me suggestion for adding 2-3 Japanese plums for both pollination and taste? Thanks!
Laroda was my best J plum and gets a lot of praise from others. In the end all my plums were taken out in favor of pluots. You have the two best ones. Others I like that you might find are Geo Pride and Flavor Finale.
Flavor Supreme is by far the best pluot/plum Iāve eaten. Donāt give up on it until you get some properly ripened. Under ripe they can be too tart. The issue is fruit set. Itās flowers arenāt attractive to bees. Graft all those pollinators into the FS. Iām intergrafting all of mine.
In my location, either is a good producer. I donāt think mine is pollinating issue rather, my location just is not suitable for growing these two cultivars that are high rated by DWN.
A word of cautious, when plum is grafted on peach branch, it might take over the peach.
I canāt grow pluots here, I had a tree for near 8 years that produced nothing. I had to remove it, maybe not enough chill hours.
The satsuma plums that I picked, actually dropped in my hand, were tart, not tasty as Santa Rosa plum at all.
@scottfsmith does this technique apply to other varieties? For future reference, Iām interested in Hollywood, candy heart, emerald beaut, elephant heart, red heartā¦
If we had a table with this info for all varieties, thatād be great!
Iām sure many folks have tried to create their own tables for fruit characteristics.
Having not grown a variety as my location I am stuck with reading online chill hour estimates. I looked at one plum variety the other day and found a range from 300 hrs to 900 hrs.
Not exactly useful.
Scott, just a quick question. I often pick the plum/ grapes/other fruits under the tree and eat right away without washing the yeast off. Do you think the yeast might cause any health problem?
I would recommend Dapple Dandy and Flavor Grenade (both are pluots), as pollinators and producers of high quality fruit.
For Japanese plums, I have Weeping Santa Rosa and Lavinia but have not produced for me yet. Both are liked by many, and are significantly earlier to ripen than all the pluots in my post and yours.
I donāt think thatās yeast. Itās a waxy film on the fruit likely to protect it from desiccation and maybe other issues. Iāve eaten a ton over the years. Itās natural maybe even beneficial.
Every plum has its own best signal of when to pick. For Shiro which just finished I go by the color: light yellow is not ready and dark yellow is ready. Also the softness is often a useful gauge, too hard means not ready and squishy means over-ripe.
@fruitnut you are right its not yeast, it is epicuticular wax. It has been called yeast by a lot of people including me but that is just hearsay. There is a link to yeast in that the wax helps feed yeast in fermentations as it is helpful in building the yeast cell walls. There may even be some wild yeast collecting on it (but I could find no mention of that). It is exuded by the skin of the fruit to protect it. I just used Google to update my knowledge 
PS I found a link mentioning that the wild yeast collects on this wax. Its sort of obvious it has to though, as that is the whole exterior of the fruit ā¦ What's Up With Wild Fermentation in Wine? | Wine Folly
If you take any fruit and let it sit out it will ferment from natural yeastā¦whether already on the fruit or in the air.
After thousands of years of accidental and purposeful alcoholic drink consumption, weād know by now what was dangerous (besides the alcohol and what we get up to on it).
Thank you all for your J plums and pluots suggestions! Appreciate it.
for satsuma, I look for a full purple color then start squeezing them. I pick when they start getting soft. I like them when theyāre ripe enough to eat without counter ripening, but not too soft that theyāre juice bags. the sour bit at the core and sour skin are important to me too, I wouldnāt want to lose that if it got too ripe
I picked my first one today out of a very light crop this year, theyāll ripen over maybe a two week period
Well oddly enough this year I am not getting the circles. Instead I am just looking for loss of the bloom somewhere on the plum. Here is a picture of what I just harvested:
There is some loss of bloom on all of these.
@scottfsmith not sure if iāve asked elsewhere but do you have the approximate number of days between the following?:
Mine looks fully covered in bloom now and locaated less than a meter from the ground on a low branch so itās also a bit of a challenge to peek underneath daily.
I harvest most stone fruit when they start to soften up. Give it a pinch. If hard not ripe. If a bit of give then ripe or nearly so. See how one of those tastes and adjust accordingly.
@scottfsmith does the bloom partially disappear even before the entire fruit turns red? We only have a couple of fruit sets now (first fruiting) and they both look enirely (no yellows left as you photo shows) red yet both are still covered in bloom entirely.
The time between phases is very temperature dependentā¦ much faster in heat.
If your plums are still all covered in bloom they are not ripeā¦ at least not by my standard. Look at the ones I picked above, none are all covered.
@scottfsmith just making sure, am I correct satsuma has no scent when ripening? A bird plucked one of mine last week but fortunately saved by the organza bag. Now, about a week after storing it in a cardboard box, it seems to have a very unique pleasant scent. Not sure tho if itās because itās been stored in a cardboard box along with nectarines or if it actually has a scent when ripened.
