I have a Mt Royal plum tree planted in 2014. It started to flower around 2016 - few flowers. It was same few flowers(under 40 total) every year since. What can be a reason for such a lazy flowering habit? The tree is about 10’ tall and has about the same width, I prune it twice a year - when flowering(making sure I do not cut the flowers off ) and in the end of the summer when it pushes up a lot of vertical grows. Tree looks fine from growing perspective, just not giving enough of flowers. Before it I had another European plum tree(bought as Green Gage, never had a chance to try the fruit) that had the same annoying habit - not making flowers, other than just few per season for 8 years, I removed it. Could it be something about the soil? Peach that is growing about 10’ west from the plum tree flowers and produces just fine.
European plums take a lot longer to fruit than peaches do. They are harder to calm down enough to fruit, I had lots of problems until I started bending limbs down. Japanese plums are very different, they fruit like peaches. You might try some limb bending, thats what eventually got mine to fruit.
How low do you bend them, horizontally or even lower?
You didn’t mention the rootstock. On Myro they often take 6 years after planting a whip to come into bearing but I haven’t grown Mt. Royal on Citation which presumably would speed up the process.
The best way to accelerate bearing is to bend branches below horizontal and prune away the uprights that form just above the bends during the spring and summer, ASAP, so plenty of light reaches the leaves near the developing flower buds. This likely also reduces root growth.
However, this will slow the vigor of the tree, so you have to evaluate your priorities.
Thanks, Alan, rootstock is Mariana. Cummins told me it should start producing in 3-4 years, it had several branches when I planted it. Slow vigor is a good thing for me, my space is limited. I will try to bend the branches and prune even more and earlier.
Yes, on that rootstock I would expect it to begin fruiting even without “festooning” branches, although I don’t have the benefit of experience with Marianna. You haven’t been aggressively cutting back branches, have you? Does the tree get good sun?
Here, Mt. Royal is a reliable cropper once it starts to fruit, but I can’t remember it being either noticeably precocious or stubbornly juvenile. I only grow it on Myro. I don’t have it in my orchard, so don’t observe the variety with full focus. I do grow it in an orchard I tend to very frequently during the season, though.
If you had pruned it back to a 30 inch whip, when you first planted it,
it would have grown a lot more and should be fruiting by now. People often
make the mistake of planting new trees already branched. This often
slows down the development of the tree.
I do cut all vertical grows, by the end of the summer the shoots grow like 3’ tall - I didn’t realized you have to cut them as soon as they appear. Will try it this year. I do not cut any mature wood severely, just for aeration and if there is black knot. Sun is something that could be better - half of the tree gets 8 hours of sun, half is covered by the house shadow at least several hours in mid day. Also there was a huge fir tree near by that used to steal couple hours of morning sun, but not any more - we cut it down last fall. I will post a picture when snow gets lower and hope you can tell me how I can prune it better. Thanks again!
Unfortunately, I had no choice. I got it branched, and branched weirdly - the first branches were two strong branches going in opposite directions and third one was tilted, somewhat weak leader branch going up… And I do not complain about the size of tree. I don’t want it to grow anymore - it is already 10’ wide and 10’ high - it is a limit for my small yard.
I do it on purpose without negative consequences. The only species I feel a need to cut back to stimulate growth is pears. Cutting whips back for me is for the purpose of placing scaffolds. Commercial apple growers often seek well branched bare root apple trees because it SPEEDS the development of a baring tree. I don’t know if as you get further south the intensity of the sun doesn’t change the dynamic.
I need a long trunk to get trees above the browse line and create room for squirrel and coon baffles below the branches. Most of my trees do come from nurseries topped, though, to fit in the shipping boxes, but Adams uses pretty tall boxes and leaves a lot of the trunk…
You don’t have to, but it may help nourish developing flower buds. On that strategy, I’m just running on an educated guess. However, if you were getting excessive shading from your water sprouts, it could delay fruitfulness of the tree, but I have brought many plum trees into production and never experienced this.
I was talking about stub type cuts heading back scaffold branches. That is what stimulates prolonged, vegetative growth habits.
Just to be clear: In general you should try to prune less, not more. Of course you have to eliminate too upright and shading growth. But you really should aim to prune only branches you have to right now. Try to calm the vigor down. If the tree starts to fruit then you start renewal pruning by removing some branches etc. A good fruitload is the best tool to calm vigor down. Limb bending is another tool to calm down vigor of limbs. But keep in mind those bend branches will loose vigor and probably need to be removed/shortened by renewal pruning some years ahead. So you shouldn’t bend those limbs you need for the structure of the tree (eg. scaffold branches). You can train them for good angles etc. but don’t bend them horizontal or even below. Thats for fruiting wood, not for scaffolds.
Avoid heading cuts for now. Cut back on feeding the tree with nitrogen and even water.
That are the first things that come to my mind.
I disagree with some of that, the branches won’t have to be replaced because you can always prune to train them back to above horizontal, if it’s needed, which I do. I routinely pull E. plum branches below horizontal that are grafts on established trees to test varieties quickly. If the fruit is good, the branch stays. You can also pull branches up with string on central leader trees, using a hinge if necessary.
The general rule that excessive pruning can delay fruiting I agree with. In fact, with apples it is often best to remove nothing except branches more than a third the diameter of the trunk and damaged and crossing wood until the first crop. However it is not a good strategy for all varieties, IME, especially Fuji, which is so crazy vegetative on free standing rootsock that I seem to need to open the tree to create fruit buds.
Most times when I do renewal pruning I try to keep the branches. I made my sentence short by writing “removed/shortened”, cause renewal pruning is another topic. I didn’t want to go into that too deeply. But you are right. Most times you can “rotate fruitwood” by cutting back to a more upright shoot or even convert back to a scaffold.
Nonetheless I am hesitant to pull down branches below horizontal, when I need them for the structure. Its ok, when you are sure bending will force new growth you can use for scaffolds later or you can pull up the branch later on. But I try to get the structure right first and then care for the fruiting of the tree.
Thats why -in general- I don’t bend scaffolds horizontal. If you have a reason to do so and know how to handle the arising situation you can of course go ahead and do so. But I really think that is a more advanced approach and I wouldn’t use it as a general-purpose advice. Thats why I stress the bending method is not for scaffolds but for fruiting wood. In fact in your example about newly grafted trees you produce fruiting wood by bending and later on you convert that into a scaffold again, using your experience/knowledge. That is not for everyone.
Galina,
I think a few things may have contributed to your Mt Royal being stingy in production:
- your fertile soil (the tree is happy growing)
- not enough sun (the more sun, the better fruit production)
- lack of branch bending (to stimulate flower buds/fruiting)
- lack of cross-pollination.
I know Mt. Royal is self fertile but most if not all self fertile fruit trees produce better with cross pollination. You may have a perfect storm there.
I grow my E plums open center/vase shape. All branches are bent at least 50-60 degrees. My trees are in full sun. They have plenty of each other to cross pollinate. They are on Marianna 2624. They started fruiting in year 3 and have been productive since.
Just my two cents.
The thing is that many types of Euro plums take too damn long to fruit so I now pull them below as a routine. The French axe method is used all over the world for apples which maintains all bearing wood below horizontal. And yet pruning manuals often warn of letting branches go below horizontal because it can excessively stunt growth were you want it and encourage a riot of water sprouts where you don’t.
We can offer all kinds of advice, but there is no substitute for experience (or advice, for that matter).
Agree with most of it but pollination. To have a pollination problem you have to have some flowers that need pollination. And this is exactly what I am missing - flowers.
Branch bending to create flower buds for next year would be a priority, I guess.
I do not feed the tree at all - only exception is my two digs urinating under, but not necessary all the time under this particular tree. And I don’t think I can bend scaffold branches - they at least wrist -thick now. I understand the idea of calming the vigor down. But I have no idea how to achieve it.
- agree 100%, but it is exactly what I am missing on my tree.
I don’t think you did anything wrong, really. In the end it is as everyone says. Euro Plums need some years to come into fruiting. 4-5 years for first fruits is nothing to worry about. If you use vigorous rootstock you have to wait even longer.
Here where I live Euro Plums are the standard and Asian Plums are the exception. I am still very suprised every year about the mass of flower buds Asian Plums produce, though most of them are very young and even more vigorous than most Euro Plums. With many Euro Plums high vigor and lots of flower buds don’t concur. That is one reason why less vigorous rootstock is used. They promote early fruiting.
If really desperate you could look into another technique: girdling. You have to be careful cause you can kill a tree by girdling. There are different ways of girdling I know from more dangerous to less:
One is to remove a small strip (1 inch or less) of bark around the stem horizontaly but leaving a bridge, so the tree won’t die. Don’t scrape away the cambium. Protect the wound like you would when grafting. Second is you could remove a strip of bark horizontaly, turn that strip upside down and “regraft” it into place. Third girdling technique I know is to put some kind of protection around the stem so you don’t damage the bark too much, then twist a thick wire around the stem real thight (using a piece of wood as a handle). The wire needs to girdle the stem without cutting deep into the bark. The girdle has to be very tight though to hamper the transportation of nutrients. You remove the girdle after the growing season.
If you have to do another girdle in later seasons don’t do them at the same position.
I really don’t like those techniques cause you risk to harm the tree. They are kind of redundant nowadays, cause using the right rootstock and pruning/training techniques is a safer route to go. They were used to push a tree on vigorous roots into production, when there were only vigorous rootstock available. If the tree starts to produce flower buds it tends to do so even after you removed the girdle.
If the only options are to get the tree into production or to remove it, give girdling a try.
You don’t have to pull down the entire scaffolds, you can pull down secondary branches for the same effect. Also, a few cuts a third of the way through an inch apart on the underside of scaffolds next to the trunk may allow you to pull them down. It’s called a hinge.
Another thing- plums can be very mysterious. Sometimes there is no apparent explanation why a clone remains juvenile at one site for much longer than another when both trees are growing at similar vigor.
However, trees will always eventually mature, and at least flower if flowers aren’t being burned off by cold.