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

These should be considered ONLY for breeding.  They are small and tend to have stoney material in the seed cavity.  This year, there was more stoney material  than usual, with some fruits having almost a half stone on them.  The material is worse than a stone because it's in bits that are harder to remove. 
In any case, they don't come true.  I planted over 30 seedlings many years ago and only two had the stoneless trait.  Also, a lot of them were sterile runts that never bore, even though I left them in for over 25 years.  
The old books on Luther Burbank show plums that had totally empty seed cavities, though those selections weren't released.  By that, it appears that it should be possible to use this material to breed completely stoneless and seedless plums, but no one has done it and I haven't time to work with them any more.  I thought that a serious breeder might be able to sort out something useful from seedlings as I have the original tree growing next to one of it's best seedlings.  There might be offspring with the totally seedless trait, in that case.
But PLEASE don't request these seeds unless you are serious about it.  I can send scions for those who want just to try a stoneless plum.
-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. 
For all other things grape,   http://www.vitisearch.com
A video about The Grape Grower : http://cookingupastory.com/index.php/2008/04/18/the-grape-grower/
On Aug 18, 2008, at 3:04 PM, piper33@verizon.net wrote:

Lon,
Where did these come from? What type of plum do they most resemble in 
form, texture and flavor? Since the cyanide-type chemical is made safe 
by heat, can you cook and eat the whole fruit?
-Mark Lee, Seattle, harvesting figs and rosehips, blackberries ready 
soon


On Sat, Aug 16, 2008 at  8:10 PM, Lon J. Rombough wrote:

> This is for anyone who might have interest in breeding stoneless 
> plums. Mine are ripe now and many have viable kernals, even though 
> they lack all or most of the stone. I've grown seedlings of them 
> before and some do carry the stoneless trait. If  anyone else is 
> interested, I can still collect seed for about another day or so. 
> After that, the hot weather and animals will take the majority of 
> them.  Stratify the bare kernels just like seed, but with some 
> fungicide like captan to keep them from rotting until they grow.
> Contact me offlist if you want to try them.
> -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.
> For all other things grape,   http://www.vitisearch.com
> A video about The Grape Grower : 
> http://cookingupastory.com/index.php/2008/04/18/the-grape-grower/
>
>
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