For those of you have Shiro and Santa Rosa, or Shiro and Methley When does Shiro bloom relative to either of the other two? And how much overlap do you get between them? The fewer chilling hours you get, probably the more relevant your situation will be to mine. Thanks.
I won’t be a huge help, but I have a weeping Santa Rosa and just one branch of Shiro. I’ll document the bloom times next year. I don’t know if weeping SA has a different bloom time than the standard SR.
Southern Louisiana. 9a or 9b
As a side, I got 2 Shiro on my 2nd year graft. They are beautiful little golden orbs. I enjoyed the taste, though I’ve read that many consider them nothing special.
I’ll be happy with a tree full of those nothing specials. I’ll bet they are great to cook with and make preserves.
1 Like
My guess is that if the trees remain healthy in the heat and humidity of the Deep South, and they don’t brown rot too bad, they will be as good or better than the other varieties that can take our conditions. I have many customers who are verry partial to the Sonny’s Yellow. My guess is that these would be super popular as well. The biggest issue with yellow plums as a group from a commercial grower’s perspective is that they show off every blemish. But when you sell from your yard as I do, a bright yellow plum is very eye catching and therefor sells quickly.
1 Like
I bought a chikasaw plum 3 years ago. Its literally 2 feet tall. Not happy in it’s spot.
I got it for pollination. I will try to graft it to other trees as I’m not sure it will survive where it is.
My little Shiro branch created 2 perfect little fruit. Solid golden yellow with no blemishes. Of course that’s just this year. I can’t believe a squirrel didn’t find it.
Hi Marcus,
This may give you a relative comparison
My blossom schedule input is at Plum Tree Varieties and Pollination - #14 by DennisD
Mar 2, 2024!
Dennis
Kent, wa
I have all of the ones you listed and they all overlap flowering. I’m in Va. though.
I have AU Rosa and Shiro here in southern middle TN.
AU Rosa blooms first… late Feb early March… then Shiro opens first blossoms 3-5 days later.
The pic above was taken on March 4… in the foreground Shiro had oprned just a few blossoms… in the background AU Rosa was blooming nicely already.
I have gradted 9 other varieties to these two trees.
TNHunter
1 Like
That one bloom time table is very helpful. Since it looks like you are trying to collect bloom time data in one place, here is a PDF of plum bloom time data for my orchard. I will try to calculate the chilling hours I got for the years in which I have data tonight or tomorrow when I have more time. Bloom times often go a bit wonky when plums are near the bottom end of their chilling requirement. I will also try to add a link to the Byron Georgia bloom data published by the University of Georgia later as well.
Note: I’m now pretty sure that the plum listed as Mariana is not Mariana due to the fruit from a sucker being different. I have always thought that the tree acted like a Methley and that the fruit looked and taisted like Methley. The only thing is that it does not seem to be self-fertile or as good as a pollinizer as the literature implies that Methlie is.
Plums Bloom Records 2024.pdf (124.0 KB)
1 Like
Chilling hour information calculated to go with Plum Bloom Table for seasons I collected data in the table attached to the above comment. Nearly all of my plums are well on their way to breaking dormancy by February 15th most years. It’s almost certainly too late for any more chilling hours to do any good for plums. Most of my plums are beginning to break dormancy by February 1 most years. That’s likely when the hours have to be in for most of them. I calculated chilling hours both ways. For my super early bloomers the hours may need to be in sometime in January, but those likely have a super low chilling requirement anyway. I also calculated the hours for my two warmest recent winters to help people understand why I say that I can count on about 500 chilling hours.
Total hours 45F or below between Oct 1 and Feb 15: 2024 699, 2020 816, 2018 873.
Hours from 45F to 32F between Oct 1 and Feb 15: 2024 590, 2020 710, 2018 657
Warmest recent winters 2022 / 2023 hours from 45F to 32F 479, 2016 / 2017 from 45F - 32F 395.
Total hours 45 or below between Oct 1 and Feb 1: 2024 622, 2020 672, 2018 821
Hours from 45 to 32 between Oct 1 and Feb 1: 2024 512, 2020 572, 2018 604
Warmest recent winters 45 or below from Oct 1 2022 to Feb 1 2023 531, 2016 / 2017 448.
Warmest recent winters 45 to 32 from Oct 1 to Feb 1, 2023 425, 2017 396.
1 Like
I’ve tried all the methods for chill accumulation calculations and have decided, for my location, it’s not worth the trouble trying hang on and trust in the numbers except from a very high level.
As I type this, my Flavor Grenade, which fruited quite well for the first time this year, is still blooming. It’s been over 3 weeks of blooms. I don’t think I’ll have many, if any, flower buds left for next spring.
I’ll have to get my enjoyment and satisfaction from my other trees next year.
I have a Methley that’s blooming some. It’s a common response to a hurricane passing through, and we have had two this year.
What other pluots do you have, and how are they handling southern Louisiana? I’m thinking about trying Dappled Dandy. One of the options for creating space for it would be to graft over Shiro with it.
I often see a few blooms pop on my few teuit trees late after a dry spell then some rain. This year it started blooming without that pattern.
I have an unnamed plumcot in a bad spot thst gives me a handful (<10) tasty fruit a year. I grafted Dapple Dandy this past spring. It will be several years before i see how it does. Good growth on the DD. I even did a mid summer prune to about 3 feet and still ended up with this. See photo.
1 Like
I’ll have to decide how I want to prune in the spring.
It will send plenty of laterals next year.
1 Like
Thank you. I have a friend in Georgia who plans to send me some. His tree is a couple of years further along than yours. He got a hand full of fruit this year. The big question is how does it behave in a hot and humid summer long term. I’m reading lots of posts from people who had significant issues with brown rot in places like Maryland which concern me.
Well surviving the first year really isn’t going to tell us how it will do in the future.
Perhaps others in humid, hot summers can chime in.
Hi Marcus
I had hoped other stone fruit producers in various growing zones would use the input tables to enter their respective data, but it never caught on. My hope was that we would end up with useful comparative data for all plum and pluot varieties. If we could somehow encourage participation eventually we all could benefit
Dennis
1 Like
Dennis, I was planning to carefully track and document bloom times next spring for your repository. By the time i noticed it this spring many of my plums had already bloomed and i didn’t have exact dates. Please keep me honest as February approaches.
Hi Robert,
Just your response is very encouraging! I will certainly post a reminder on the Plum thread early enough that hopefully all members who desire to contribute can start watching for those ballon stages of each variety they grow.
And I will message you in Feb as well to mark your calendar as I do so we don’t forget!
Perhaps if we get the majority of zones to input we can find a way to post a consolidated resulting database.
Given our decline in pollinators in many zones cross pollination in stonefruit can best be done if blossom schedules closely match. I recall reading that most stonefruit blossoms are the most receptive in the first three days after blossoms fully open. If this is true, such a database would be worth having which is why I would like members to help us create it across all growing zones.
Thanks for your help
Sincerely
Dennis
Kent, wa
2 Likes