North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

[Charles Paradise <machelp@attglobal.net>]

They may yet bear fruit.  But once you start with plums, I recommend planting 
at least a dozen
varieties.  I believe you need to create many different sources of pollen, in 
order to realize
fruit set.  Your choice in my opinion is whether to cut down your shiro and 
santa rosa japanese
plums and plant something more reliably fruitful, or else to consider 
yourself committed and add
many more varieties, and plant them closely together.

Think plum thicket.  Notice the ''thick'' in the word ''thicket.''
In my plum thicket I have had for awhile Kahinta, South Dakota, Waneta, 
native Kansas plum,
Sapa, Superior, Toka, NY 1502, AU-Amber, Robusto, Surprise and various 
Americana seedlings.
This year I have added AU-Producer and the Ernest Dietrich plums.  I consider 
this a modest
number of varieties and more would be better.  I get some set every year but 
not always the same
varieties.
Shiro is one of the more fruitful varieties but tastes no better than a glass 
of water.
Don't grow American or Japanese plums unless you're commiting to dozens of 
varieties. Forget
them as standalone orchard trees.  Standalones don't trade nearly enough 
pollen tree to tree.
There are other choices:  the Damson plums are supposed to be very 
self-fruitful, if mild
tasting, but I've never grown them.  Perhaps others have experience with 
Damson [Prunus
Institia], Damson is a european plum, but a separate species from the other 
european plums like
the Gages.
Charlie Paradise

mark wessel wrote:

> I have had a Shiro and Santa rosa plum in the ground and blooming for six
> years with no fruits. This year while blooming they were loaded with
> pollinators. Hundreds. No plums. Will they ever fruit?
>     Mark