North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

["Dr. Lucky Pittman" <lucky.pittman@murraystate.edu>]

OK, here’s my plug for P.angustifolia.

Growing up in rural east-central AL, thickets of P.angustifolia were pretty common, but most that I was familiar with declined or disappeared as they were largely overtaken by encroaching pine forests &/or sweetgums. 

I’ve ‘re-discovered’ them here in KY, and have come across a number of nice, sizable roadside/pasture thickets of them – and my experiences with attempting to grow a few European and Japanese hybrid plums have pretty much failed, but the Chickasaw plums are reliable, producing almost every year, and while they do get some brown rot – worse some years than others – they’re pretty clean, and even the curculios don’t seem to bother them much – a little clear gum from PC wounds, but the fruits are relatively unaffected otherwise.  I’ve, for the most part, abandoned all the cultivated plums in favor of P.angustifolia – the fruit may be small, but at least I get some, and almost every year.

In addition to the local natives, I also have the ‘Guthrie’ cultivar, and it produced a large crop of pingpong-ball sized fruits this year, with good flavor.  More than I could eat, even with the onslaught of the Japanese beetles; gave away a couple gallons of nice ripe plums to friends and neighbors.

 

I have some row-run P.americana plants, that I initially purchased for use as rootstocks – and have been singularly unimpressed with the few fruits they’ve produced.

Had a couple of seedling P.maritima from OIKOS; one, a dwarf selection, produced small tart fruits with not a lot of pulp that usually dried on the plant – I ate a few, as I’d pass the bush, but never really bothered harvesting them, though they were tasty, even when dried; the second one, larger, and more vigorously suckering, has never set a fruit, and now that the dwarf has died out, it may never do so, unless the nearby Chickasaws bloom at the same time.

 

Lucky Pittman

Hopkinsville, KY

 

From: nafex-bounces@lists.ibiblio.org [mailto:nafex-bounces@lists.ibiblio.org] On Behalf Of Steven Covacci
Sent: Monday, November 29, 2010 2:19 AM
To: nafex@lists.ibiblio.org
Subject: Re: [NAFEX] nafex Digest, Vol 94, Issue 27: Prunus

 

*Jay:  Now I know that I better plant some more P. americana - better then [?all] commercial-grade plums?  Sounds extremely promising.  I just don't know why no one is mentioning Chickasaw plum (P. angustifolia) which, although I've never tasted, certainly have always heard of or Munson/wild-goose plum (P. munsoniana) which Oikos Tree Crops claim to be the best plum they have for eating out-of-hand and I've read other good reviews for.

 

*The prickly-pear that is commercially available is a favorite of mine that fits, in many ways, the description of your local Opuntia.

*Jerry Lehman: This is useful information.  However, my soil is more sandy/loam here in New Jersey then in Indiana, but still, since it's doing well for you, I'll try Krymsk.

Looks like growing cherries is just not going to be a stable, predictable endeavor, unfortunately.  I'll just have to experiment a bit with all of the roostocks.

Thanks,

Steve