Finally my Beauty plums are fully ripen. I mean really ripen on the tree. It’s dark purple and feels soft with gentle squeeze. I tested the brix of a few, but find they range 12-15. Don’t get me wrong . It taste really good. But I am wondering if that’s the average brix of plums?
I read a few posts here, and most people seem to have around 15. That’s not too high in my opinion. What’s the brix of your plums?
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I like the color. This year it got a lot of fruits. Probably 800, because I sprayed to control PCs. Next year I need to do a good job thinning.
PS : squirrels got 80% of the fruits. They are furious 
Hope there is a good solution to control them.
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I’ve found Beauty to overset. Even this year when we had late freeze, Beauty still managed to hold on to its flowers and set tons of fruit again.
I thin them. However, I’ve found that our summer (on average) is not dry enough to get sugar up on Beauty. It tastes quite diluted.
In my area:
Pro - Very productive. On a large size.
Con - Taste - average.
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You summed it up nicely. I agree.
I read your other posts and you got brix at 15 as well. Do you see any plums with higher numbers?
I planted a few other varieties this year. Hope they will taste much sweeter. But I can be easily satisfied.
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Euro plums tend to be sweeter. I got Coe’s Golden Drop with brix as high as 28-30. Mirabelle plums are very sweet, too.
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That is really high. How difficult to grow them compared to J plums? Scott said it was more difficult due to late ripening.
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I am about a zone colder than @scottfsmith, the only one that ripened too late for me was Middleburg.
The difficulty of Euro for me is black knot. My trees are in a perfect location, full sun all day long. It is pruned to an open center style. They have gotten black knot here and there every year.
I personally prefer Euro to J plums taste-wise.
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Euro plums are just not as happy in hotter climates, and that leads to various problems. They rot much more easily for one. They are also more bug-susceptible. I got a massive OFM hit on a couple of my Euros a few weeks ago, I had to remove about a third of them. Only a couple Japanese plums were hit. I also have big aphid problems on them, the green plum aphids really can get out of control. One good thing though is it breeds a massive colony of ladybugs, I have many thousands of them in my orchard and once the population is big enough (i.e. early/mid June) I see little in the way of aphids.
I like the later-ripening ones as they seem to do relatively better overall, I am not sure the exact reason but my guess is ripening in relatively cooler fall weather is a big plus. After getting rid of a dozen or so varieties I am currently getting good harvests from Coes, Bavay, Golden Transparent Gage, French, and Reine Mirabelles. At some point I might just take them all out, but the trees are finally starting to produce a good amount so I am going to let them do their thing for a few more years. Oh speaking of finally doing their thing, the other downside of Euros is they take about twice as long before they start bearing well compared to Asian plums.
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@scottfsmith,
Is it because of rootstocks re. your trees taking a long time to fruit. My 3 trees are on Marianna 2624. All started producing in year 3 and every year since.
Agree that pests like them both PC and OFM. I don’t have noticeble rot on E plums but has seen more on J plums. My E plums are in full sun. J plums are in partial shade. For me, that’s what make a difference. They both get the same spray treatments.
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I have all different kinds of rootstocks including Mariana 2624. The best Euro rootstock in terms of precocity has been Citation.
Euros are well known to take longer to come into bearing than Asians. I expect it is the shade causing problems for your Asians. You are also in a better climate for Euros compared to me.
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That sounds like good brix levels for Beauty. It isn’t especially sweet and has very tart skin. Makes it great for jam with a ton of sugar. It makes a really nice sweet/tart flavor and the skins give it a beautiful deep red color.
Make sure to separate pits from pulp first. The pits break into pieces but stay hard, very difficult to separate in cooked pulp. Don’t ask how I know 
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I don’t have a lot of experience with Euros or Asians, but I do feel that vigor can contribute significantly to earlier fruiting. Here is Empress grafted to Indian Free (last year) in my least sunny location. Very vigorous compared to Indian Free, and I did thin the fruit down to 8 on the branch. I assume grafts of new branches to older trees bear earlier?
Since I have next to no plums, I did hand polinate Empress with Pearl and visa versa. I also aquired a small branch of unknown Euro Plum from my mother in law to assist both with polination.
Pearl on O’Henry is less vigorous, but still set two plums:
I also grafted Flavor King and Dapple Dandy to existing peach trees and hand polinated between the two, but had no other polinator options. Didn’t get either to set a fruit.
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Thanks for this information! I did not know that Euro plums can be grafted to peach trees.
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Thank you Scott for the clarifications and details!
I think it is too challenging for me to try E plums. I will stay with J plums and be happy. 
That’s right! The skin of Beauty plums is very tart.
Because I have tasted the fully tree ripen fruits, I think I can focus on other better varieties now. I am really into those for fresh eating. I have planted Shiro, Satsuma, Spring Satin, Burgundy, and Flavor King this year. Hopefully I will find out which ones are the best for me in 2 years.
The other good thing about Beauty is that it is very early ripening.
That is definitely a big advantage. Less spraying, less damages and less rots. For what ever reason Beauty ripens around 6/25 in here, consistent with the harvest chart provided by Dave Wilson in CA. I also checked the harvest chart from Adams County Nursery. Their earliest plum is in late July. I am wondering why? I thought my place should be more consistent with ACN chart. Maybe ACN is much colder than here on Northern VA? Very interesting. I am tracking the fruiting schedule now. Maybe I can share a chart for DC metro area after a few years.
Beauty is low on sugar compared to other plums that ripen later in the season. It has a very nice aroma, but tastes like a watered down Santa Rosa to me.
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For the benefit of those who will be reading this thread in the future it’s worth mentioning that above statement is true for East Coast and areas with similarly humid summers. On the West Coast, Euro plums take heat like champs. It’s heat plus humidity that creates problems.
Since black knot does not exist here in California, aphids in spring is the most significant issue that I have with Euro plums. They indeed are aphid magnets.
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We’ve got flavor grenade pluots and the pluots just hit 20.2 on August 11, 2023
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