[NAFEX] Plums

Lucky Pittman lucky.pittman at murraystate.edu
Fri Aug 25 15:30:55 EDT 2006


At 12:06 PM 8/25/2006, you wrote:
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>Deb,
>             I haven’t had very good luck with 
> purchased varieties of plums – lots of the 
> fruits seem to split and rot on the tree here 
> in the mountains of NC.  What I’ve started 
> doing is talking to some of the old-time 
> farmers around and asking for sprouts of any 
> “good plums” that they have, and/or buying 
> local plums from farmer’s markers and planting 
> the seeds.  I think local “land races” might be 
> better adapted to local conditions than 
> purchased trees, and it’s sort of in the NAFEX spirit, too.
Same here in KY.  I've given up anticipating any 
edible fruits from the half-dozen or so European 
& Japanese hybrid plums I planted when we first 
started our home orchard, 12 years ago.
I've got a number of native P.angustifolia - 
Chickasaw plums - that I 'rescued' out of the 
cowpasture, and just sort of plunked 'em down in 
a spot in the orchard - originally to use as 
rootstocks - which I later learned was a mistake, 
as they sucker like crazy; but, they're very 
reliable with regard to fruit production - 
they're not large fruits, but at least they 
produce a good crop, almost every year.  Yes, 
they do get brown rot, but not to the extent that 
it hits the cultivated varieties - there's 
usually more than I can/will eat out-of-hand, and 
even curculio damage rarely amounts to anything 
much more than a little spot, with a bit of clear 
goo excreted to seal the defect.
Subsequently, I've received scionwood and grafted 
several copies of the 'Guthrie' selection of 
P.angustifolia from a fellow NAFEXer, and have 
collected and grafted selections from local productive Chickasaw plum thickets.


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