North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

[Alan Haigh <alandhaigh@gmail.com>]

The E. plum I've found to be most resistant to black knot is Italian.  Here
in SE NY we get to put plums to the test as our native cherries are often
loaded with black knot and apparently don't cover their mouths when they
sneeze.  Here, Italian is not the heaviest of croppers and I'd rather do
battle with black knot and grow other varieties such as Castleton, which
almost always bears a heavy crop of prune plumes as sweet as can be (if you
let them ripen properly) and Valor, which is quite reliable for me and when
allowed to ripen until slightly soft as good as any plum I've eaten. What
makes it better for me than other high quality prune plum is that it ripens
over a very long period- through Sept to about the end of Oct in my Z6.
Not a good thing if you don't have the time to feel every plum before
picking.  Like Castleton, they look ripe long before they actually are.