North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

["Lon J. Rombough" <lonrom@hevanet.com>]

It also helps if the plum has a good amount of solids and rather low acid, otherwise it dries down to a sour little flat nothing.  Some of the Japanese plums like Redheart, Elephant heart, and the types of Japanese plums bred for shipping that are so firm, will work fairly well.  In fact, there was an attempt to market dried Japanese plums a few years ago, to use up some of the excess crop.
-Lon Rombough
Grapes, writing, consulting, my book, The Grape Grower, at http://www.bunchgrapes.com  Winner of the Garden Writers Association "Best Talent in Writing" award for 2003.
On Jun 11, 2006, at 3:37 PM, MARIE ASHTON wrote:

Nearly all plums and of course all prunes can be dried but a lot of plums 
are not firm enough to make a good finished product. The biggest difference 
is that all prunes are freestone and so many of the American and Japanese 
plums are not. When you remove the stone any can be dried. Commercially it 
only makes sense to dry freestone prunes and the few freestone plums. I am 
sure the plum you are trying to think of is a freestone there are a few 
Japanese and Am/Jp crosses that are freestone.
Richard Ashton
Oak Creek Orchard
www.oakcreekorchard.com
bwoodtx@verizon.net