North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

[plumhillfarm@gmavt.net]

Plum Cracking

The biggest yield loss I have in my plum orchard is cracking of the fruit. I live in Vermont (near zone 5, plums for 15 yr) and regularly have dry spells followed by very wet weather. I have seen cracking on essentially everything, including peaches ,in really bad conditions, but with a huge variability from cultivar to cultivar.

Since I am continually adding to my orchard, it would be nice to be able to compare cracking between cultivars.

If people could add in thier experiences, we could develop a relative cracking index which would help a large number of people.

Since every year is different, as well as when in the ripening sequence the adverse weather occurs it is hard to make an absolute scale. So I have averaged how often I see significant damage. For example Pembina cracks readily, and only in 1 year so far has it not had >50% of the fruit cracked, where as alderman only has significant losses in really bad years. Some of my results may be due to the variety not being “ready” to split or limited number of years they have fruited so getting a broader field of experiences is important

If anybody has a better idea on how to do this please let me know.

Very High  (>60% crack bad yr)

Pembina   (so productive still get a lot of plums)

Superior "

Plum parfait   (normally 100% loss)

High   (40-60%)

Redheart

Starks Declicious

Au Auburn

La Cresent

Medium  (20-40%)

Toka

Kaga

Graciuos

Kahinta

     Underwood

     South Dakota

Pipestone

Mirabelle De Metz

Mirabelle De Nancy

Peach Plum

GreenGage

Reine De Claude Gage

Jefferson (blue prune)

Low (10-20%)

Ozark Premier

Comet De Kumetz

Methley

Alderman

Purple Heart

Earlty Costello

Obil’naja

Rema

Rose Marie

Formosa

     Sumumo

Shiro

Ozark Premier

Alabaster

Kirkes Blue

Great Yellow

Ouillins Gage

Very Low

Eary Blue

Ny71

Castleton

Early Laxton

Starks blue

     Pp6995

     Fellenburg

     Long John

Stanley

De Montford

Schoolhouse

opal

‘ Ersinger

Empress

Thanks, Eric