Sharing useful plum data for new growers

General Fruit Growing
1

I am starting a new thread to share useful data for key plum, pluot, plumcot, and pluerry characteristic for my best fruiting varieties. I am in zone 8B. Before I began to trade scions and graft to increase my varieties the majority of my plums ripened in August. Since my new varieties have begun to set fruit my period of ripening starts much earlier. Given there are multiple reasons why a homeowner begins grafting I will list a few that I feel motivated me to begin grafting: increase cross pollination possibilities thereby improving production, better utilization of limited growing space, extend the ripening season, try new and exciting varieties without planting new trees.
So the data I am presenting below will be edited as I go thru this fruiting season to add new varieties that I believe others may wish to try. Keep in mind that much of this data will change as you go to different growing zones although I suspect that the sequences will be relatively the same order; i.e. a Plumcot that ripens here in zone 8B might ripen much earlier in zone 10. I am presenting both blossoming dates data and ripening period data for the varieties that I have in production this season. I encourage other members to add favorite varieties to this thread. If other members could begin to post similar data, perhaps we could obtain a multiple zone database for these two key characteristics which I believe could be very useful to any member wishing to determine best varieties suitable for their trials. As we go thru the season I will complete the ripening data and post new varieties that have not yet been tasted!
Dennis
Kent, Wa

Ripening periods for Zone 8B by variety:
Spring Satin late May to early July #1

Kuban Cometa 4 July to 20 July #2

Waneta 10 July to 20 July #3

Beauty plum: 10 July to 31 July #4

Obilnaya 15 July to 27 July #5

4th Street: 15 July to 21 July

Bills native red plum: 22 July to 31 July #6

AU Cherry plum July 20 to July 27 #7

Flavor Queen: July 20 to July 27 #8

Adara July 24- July 27# 9

Camp Joy Sauna: July 25 to Aug 1

Sweet Treat: July 25 to Aug 1

Apricot Plum: July 29 to Aug 14

Lopez: 31 July to Aug 7

Burgandy plum: Aug 4 to 15

Luisa: August 7 to 25

Geneva Mirabelle: August 8 to 25

Lavina: August 8 to Aug 14

Flavor King: Aug 14 to Aug 28

Empress Plum: August 23 to Sep 1

Stanley plum: August 23 to Sep 1

Sprite Plum: August 25 to Sep 2

Green Gage: September 3-11

Blossom data for Spring 2025 by variety:

Blossom data: BAL- ballon stage, Tran- First blossom opens, BO - all blossom open, PF - Petal Fall

Variety. BAL. TRAN. FB. PF
Kuban Cometa 3/20. 3/23. 3/25. 4/3
Waneta 3/18. 3/25. 4/5. 4/12
Beauty plum: 3/15. 3/18. 3/25. 4/5
Obilnaya: 3/15. 3/18. 3/25. 4/5
4th Street: 3/15. 3/18. 3/25. 4/5
Bills red plum: 4/5. 4/10. 4/17. 4/25
AU Cherry plum: 3/12. 3/18. 3/25. 4/5
Flavor Supreme: 3/5. 3/18. 3/25. 4/5
Adara: 3/5. 3/18. 3/22. 4/6
Camp Joy Sauna: 3/5. 3/18. 3/25. 4/6
Sweet Treat: 3/18. 3/23. 3/25. 4/5
Apricot Plum: 3/20. 3/23. 3/25. 4/5
Lopez: 3/15. 3/18. 3/25. 4/6
Burgandy plum: 3/18. 3/20. 3/25. 4/10
Luisa: 3/15. 3/18. 3/25. 4/5
Lavina: 3/18. 3/20. 3/25. 4/5
Empress plum: 3/25. 4/5. 4/8. 4/17
Stanley plum: 3/25. 4/5. 4/10. 4/17
Sprite plum: 3/18 3/20. 3/25. 5/5

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2

Can you grow apricots? If yes, you may start feeling like me, that you don’t care about early plums that ripen in apricot season. The notable early plums for me are: Hollywood, Santa Rosa, Flavor Supreme and Lavinia. The worthy late ones are: Dapple Jack, Splash, GeoPride, Flavor King, Flavor Grenade, CHP, Flavor Punch and Flavor Finale.

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3

Very good of you to compile and post this info, thanks.
One thing Im wondering is if you could give us an idea of the age of the trees?

4

I have had no success here with apricots, bought several trees about 20 years ago and with two years borers had killed them, so I stopped trying.
Dennis

5

All of my trees are over 10 years old rootstocks, three are 25 years old sweet cherry that I converted to plums with Adara interstems. The others are native volunteer rootstocks (most likely P americanna) that were here when I bought the property in 1993. I have several younger trees (less than 10 years old) that have not yet set fruit but have been multi grafted.
Dennis

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6

Do you spray insecticides? If yes, it is worth another try with cots.

7

Hi Ahmad,
No we try to avoid chemicals on fruit. The only spraying I use is applying Surround WP on apples and peaches, on other stonefruit here I only treat for aphid suppression and prevention.
Dennis

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8

For borers, you don’t spray the fruit or the whole tree, you spray the stem only.

How do you control aphids? How about Brown Rot?

9

Understand, the only thing I use now to dissuade borers is planting garlic around all peach rootstocks. Brown rot I have never experienced. For aphid control and PLC I use this which was very effective!
Here is my Actual trial treatment:

1/22/25: Buds started awakening 2 weeks ago, most Europeans not yet swelling! But most Asians are! So today I used Joe Real’s recipe on all plums and peaches; Recipe: The Italian Dressing Recipe for Peach Leaf Curl by Joe Real

  1. Add 2 oz(4TBS) of 5% vinegar to 1 gallon of water. Always add acid to water and not the other way around.

  2. In a small cup, mix well together 2 TBSP (1 OZ) of Melaleuca Oil, 1 TBSP of Neem Oil, 2 TBSP of Dawn Liquid dishwashing soap.

  3. Add to the 1 gallon diluted vinegar solution, and stir well, hence oil and vinegar and it makes for Italian Dressing.

  4. Mix and Shake very well like you would an Italian dressing before spraying.

  5. Spray during bud swell, but not during the full bloom, and when air temperature is above 40 deg F but below 75 deg F, preferably in the late afternoon.

1/28/25: Had very sunny weather for several days so, I made the second application, substituting Castile soap for Melaleuca Oil.

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