North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

[Alan Haigh <alandhaigh@gmail.com>]

Hmmm, Lon says beach plums actually kill PC that tries hatching in the fruit.  Why can't the breeders work on this trait for a couple decades.  Compared to my PC susceptible plums the Beach plums I've tried have been underwhelming.  Wish there were plums that combined the qualities of both.  Between a light set, PC damage and brown rot (in spite of numerous sprays) this looks like the worst Euro plum year for a decade for me. 

 

The Japanese types not especially prone to cracking including Hilltop's Earli-Majic, Santa Rosa, Satsuma, and a numbered variety from Cornell by way of Cummins did great and Shiro and Methely did quite well. 

 

The numbered, unnamed variety was amazing and could be a great commercial variety in the northeast based on performance last 2 years.  It bears huge, meaty, sweet, deep purple fleshed fruit.  It's also resistant to black-knot and seems less interesting to deer than most Japs.   Unfortunately it's not mentioned in Cummin's current catalogue- want some wood? 

 

Susceptible to cracking in this almost relentlessly rainy season here were Fortune and Elephant Heart.  I've come to the conclusion that EH actually does much better here in fairly shady conditions where I planted it the first time on my property.  All subsequent trees have been planted in more open sunny spots and have been susceptible to a lot of cracking and pitch pockets (that's the term, right Lon?).  When the tree in the shady spot died I thought I could get even better results in open sun and it just hasn't panned out.  It used to be my favorite J plum and now it's my worse.