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nafex - Re: [NAFEX] Asian/American Plums

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  • From: Melissa Kacalanos <mijwiz@yahoo.com>
  • To: North American Fruit Explorers <nafex@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [NAFEX] Asian/American Plums
  • Date: Mon, 17 Nov 2008 13:30:25 -0800 (PST)

> > We Americans tend to believe that anything
> written in a book is truth whereas a published work
> is no more than someone's (sometimes uneducated)
> opinion. Don't believe everything you read.

What's worse, this thing about hybrid plum pollination
is from something I read on the internet:
http://www.usask.ca/agriculture/plantsci/dom_fruit/articles/plums.pdf
It's by some academics at the University of
Saskatchewan, where I've never even been, so how do I
know Saskatchewan even exists?

Despite the anecdotal evidence from people on this
list who say their hybrid plums get pollinated just
fine, I'll probably play it safe and plant a pure
native plum anyway.

Perhaps since funding for hybrid plum pollination
studies in Saskatchewan is meager, the evidence in
this paper is somewhat anecdotal too, although it does
seem significant:

"Our recommendation regarding the necessity of wild
plum pollinizers has been
reinforced by our observations over time and in
several locations.
Many years ago our attention was drawn to a Pembina
plum tree growing at the residence
of Mr. and Mrs. Eric O. Bert. The fruit yields on
this specimen were outstanding compared to
other specimens of the same cultivar growing in the
city. We assumed that there was something
special about this tree and it was propagated. The
young Pembina trees and trees of many other
plum cultivars were planted in the university orchard
but their fruit yields were poor. Dandy and
Bounty had been planted as pollinizers in this
orchard.
In another location a 'multi-graft' plum tree
consisting of four hybrid plum cultivars and
one Prunus salicina cultivar grafted together had been
producing poor to fair crops at the
residence of one of the authors. Assuming that these
cultivars were cross pollinating, the seeds
from this tree were saved and grown into mature trees.
The objective was to find a superior
selection among the seedlings. When these seedlings
began to bear fruit, it was obvious that the
pollen parent to at least 95% of them was a wild plum
and, therefore, a superior selection was not
found. Also, it was significant that this large group
of seedlings bore few fruit even though most
of them were 75% wild. There was no completely wild
plum near them.
Later it was discovered that a wild plum was growing
in a neighbour's yard approximately
100 meters away from the original 'multi-graft' plum
tree. This was the pollen parent.
As a test of the of the pollinizing efficiency of
wild plum, a young specimen of Prunus
nigra, wild plum, was planted near the 'multi-graft'
tree. The year that this young wild plum tree
began to flower marked the beginning of outstanding
fruit yields on the 'multi-graft' tree.
Having made the above observations, the Bert
residence was revisited to inspect the
Pembina tree and to look for a wild plum that we
suspected was growing nearby. There was a
wild plum growing in the same yard. It had not been
noticed on the first visit years ago. "

Melissa










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