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Best early plum
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Posted by austransplant MD 7 (My Page) on Fri, Nov 20, 09 at 11:09
| I live in Maryland, just outside Washington DC. I am looking for advice on early plums. Currently I have just a Stanley plum, which ripens in early September. I would like to grow a plum that ripens much earlier than this but still tastes good (as a guide to my taste, I think Stanley tastes fine when fully ripe). I would also like the plum to be self-fertile and relatively disease resistant. Hopefully I am not asking for too much. My main reason for wanting early plums is that it will help me avoid the onslaught of later generations of oriental fruit moth and the onslaught I suffered this year of hornets and yellow jackets in September. It would also be nice to have some plums in the summer rather than at the end of summer. Any advice would be most welcome. |
Follow-Up Postings:
RE: Best early plum
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| Do you want a Japanese or another European? If you want a European the French Prune or French Petite is mid-August for me and is very reliable. I don't know of any particularly early Europeans, you probably need a Japanese to get a truly early one. Most of them are not reliably self-pollinating so you need two then. The most early decent Japanese plum I have found is Spring Satin which is late June / early July. Its technically a plumcot but it tastes like plum only. Satsuma is early Aug and has been very reliable for me and is my favorite plum. I am trying out many plums but these are currently the only ones fruiting that are winners. My Shiro is extremely productive and is decent if a bit bland. If you want to cut down on OFM plant some peach trap trees -- my plums have largely been OFM free thanks to the peaches which seem to be more desirable since they can drill into the shoot tips. Scott |
RE: Best early plum
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| Thanks Scott, that is really helpful. As it turns out I have a nectarine that I have basically given up on and that will live out the end of its life as a trap tree. The OFM absolutely love it, and largely ignored the Stanley plum right next to it. Since there are now issues of space in my yard, I might try grafting a few branches to act as pollinators onto one of the varieties you mention. |
RE: Best early plum
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| If you ever need some plum scion for a pollinator just drop me a line, I have 40-some varieties now. One thing I did with some of my new plums is to graft another variety to it the year I bought the tree. I will end up with 1/3 or so of the tree's fruit being the added variety. Scott |
RE: Best early plum
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| Scott has the advantage of a similar climate as an adviser, but up here the highest quality early Euro is often considered to be Oullins, which is a gage type and is in a completely different class than Stanley, being a rich sweet and complex confection to Stanley's ho-hum. Castleton is as reliable as Stanley, a couple weeks earlier and gets amazingly sweet- has that rich amber flesh of a high brix prune plum. For larger fruit of similar brix, Victory might work. In the Jap department, Methely is extremely reliable, very early (first week of July there, I figure) and has a tastey red-flesh that can have quite good quality if you thin like mad. Later and less reliable is Santa Rosa. Can't remember if Scott found that impossible down there, but it is a wonderful plum. Satsuma is quite a bit later and is my latest Japanese except maybe Fortune. I'm definately with Scott on that one. Never tried his French Petite. |
RE: Best early plum
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- Posted by murky z8f pnw Portlan (My Page) on
Fri, Nov 20, 09 at 23:56
| Early Laxton is a European plum that is aptly named and worth eating. If I remember correctly mine ripen at the beginning of August here near Portland, Oregon and are weeks earlier than any of my other plums. |
RE: Best early plum
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| Santa Rosa sets very thinly here, otherwise its great. Its good enough that I plan on keeping it in spite of the thin set, but is not good if you only have a couple trees. One of the things I love about Satsuma is the incredible fruit set every year. Scott |
RE: Best early plum
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| But Scott, here Satsuma ripens just a little later than Stanley I think. I have found Santa Rosa sets lightly in many sites but I have one in a sheltered (from wind) spot planted in the same "hole" as an Elephant Heart and it began bearing 2 seasons ago. Both seasons it has given heavy crops while the EH has been nothing but trouble, mostly because the fruit is loaded with pitch pockets. I have seen SR do well in on other sites as well, but I'm not quite sure what the issues are. Where I have it it also gets a lot of reflected light from an Airstream trailor. More intense light, wind shelter, nearby pollination, 2 anomalous seasons, who knows what factors are in play? Does your Santa Rosa flower heavy and set lightly? Do you grow Methely? I don't remember how you feel about this one. Of course it's not as good as much later ripening varieties but for being so early it is surprisingly good here. Except for extreme black knot susceptability it is as strong and reliable as a bull. (Not sure what bull's are reliable at.) |
RE: Best early plum
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| Sorry, meant to say Satsuma ripens just a little earlier. |
RE: Best early plum
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| Hman, my Satsuma is three weeks before any of my European plums so I don't think it will overlap. My SR flowers heavily, it just drops most of the fruit when small. All the plums around it set very well except a pluot which is even more fickle. Methley is the most popular plum here by far. I find the skin too bitter and I don't grow it but its a decent plum and very reliable/productive. Hopefully in a few years I will have more "winner" varieties to report; I added quite a few recently since most of the California varieties I started with proved to be busts. Scott |
RE: Best early plum
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| That's strange, I don't find the skin at all bitter. I just find the flesh bland if it's not picked while it still has a little tartness and too small when it isn't radically thinned. It bears in immense clusters that put grapes to shame. I have Euros that ripen well after Satsuma but I don't grow Stanley- seems like the fruit is in markets quite late so you must be right that there would be no overlap. I do prefer Satsuma to Methely if it was a choice of one or the other so I guess we basically agree. |
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