North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

["Kieran &/or Donna" <holycow@frontiernet.net>]

Lucky,  I grafted some Am X's the last 2 springs, only to come across my notes from the last Clemson meeting, where the breeder in Byron GA said that Hansen used western stocks of native plums that bloom earlier and get more black knot.  Oops.  I've already lost one of the recent AU plums I'd ordered, and the monster plum on peach from AU scions you sent has it's trunk rotting away, may not last another crop.  Guess I need to snoop around and see how I can get some X's better suited for here.  And I still need to fix things so I can fence chickens under ALL my stone fruits for curculio control. 

    Friends of ours in E Tenn had some chickasaw plums that were quite nice, I remember she made fruit leather out of them.  I have 2 selections from yards in town, I suppose they are chickasaw.  I remembered plum thickets when I was a kid in Huntsville AL and asked Joyce Neighbors about them.  She said that the few plum thickets she could find were non-productive and when she got an expert to look at them he said they were riddled with virus.  We have 2 plum thickets on our route to town, they bloom too early and seldom crop.  I dug a sprout from a tree somewhere, can't think where unless it's something from you, it blooms too early too.  Even earlier than the AU and myrobalan plums.  Donna