North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

[Scott Smith <scott@cs.jhu.edu>]

Lucky, I was interested in your remark on the relative lack of PC in the Chickasaw plums. I have also noticed less PC activity in a purple ornamental plum I have.  The tree is a variety bred to produce almost no fruits, but the few fruits it gets have only one in 10 with any PC mark on them.  The plums taste perfectly fine on it, more flavorful than beach plums for example.  It seems like it would be possible to breed a plum which was PC resistant and also larger and more flavorful.  In looking through Plums of New York (1911) I find there are several varieties of native plums which are mentioned as being PC-resistant (Miner, Pottawattamie, Bassett, Rollingstone, Wild Goose) so its not like this is new knowledge.

Scott

On Nov 29, 2010, at 2:41 PM, Dr. Lucky Pittman wrote:

...

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.