Doug,
Yes my Mirabelle is of quite good quality, and I would say more than just
"suitable" for fresh eating when well ripe. The racoons are also very found
of it so I usually have to harvest a bit before full maturity. It ripens
about a week later than Mont-Royal.
Next year I intend to take close-up pictures of the flowers and count the
stamens - I read in Plums of NY that P.insititia have a different number of
stamens than P.communis, so hopefully this test should confirm if it is
really a Mirabelle. If you want, I could sent you a picture off list - I
have a nice one with Mirabelle and Blue Damas side by side to compare sizes.
Claude
At 01:55 2009-11-17, you wrote:
Claude, is your Mirabelle of decent quality, and suitable for fresh eating?
I would be surprised if some of the settlers of New France had not
planted seeds of Mirabelles from France. I would also have expected them
to try grafted trees from France at some point.
Stanley is a shade hardier than Mount Royal (though liable to black
knot, and from my limited observation not very good quality on peach
soils at least for fresh eating) and if I remember rightly it came from
a cross between Prune D'Agen and Grand Duke; (I forget the direction)
i.e. old European plums.
But also, around 1985 I observed in an old plum orchard in the Niagara
Peninsula, several trees with small, round, rather bland fruits of
various colours including yellow, which I deduced were sprouts from
rootstocks of perhaps St. Julien, where the tops of commercial cultivars
had died. And (for the benefit of the newbies), damsons, Mirabelles, and
the St. Julien rootstocks are subgroups of Prunus insititia of Europe.
Doug Woodard
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