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["Alan Haigh" <alandhaigh@gmail.com>]

Thanks for the answer, Ron.  Now I know what the condition is called and that the issue is climatically influenced.  It's interesting that the tree in a "less favorable" location never suffered the malady, maybe because it was in less vigorous growing mode.  Some varieties of apples often suffer corking when they are young and  excessively vigorous as is this plum tree.  Maybe when growth slows the quality will improve for the plum as it does for these apples like Honeycrisp. 

 

Redheart has not proven a useful cultivar for me in the conditions here and I've been looking for another good redflesh for a few years.  I'm growing an experimental unnamed redflesh variety I got from Jim Cummins but it is not quite as good as E H although the plums are huge round and firm and pretty good- a bit reminiscent of Ozark Premier.  Satsuma seems to survive here but so far also lacks the quality of E H.  The plum I'm most excited about in northeastern conditions is Fortune which is exceptionally beautiful, prolific and delicious but in a different way than E H.  It is a firm plum and yellow fleshed but with a great acid sugar balance.

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