PLUM tree

[mutantpoodle]

I have a 2 year old plum tree...well .......planted 2 years ago!

this year its produced about 30 nice plums so am quite pleased

however all the laeaves have gone brown/yellow and fall off easilly
i have googled problem.....and it might be 'plum tree leaf rust'

so I have gently removed remaining leaves and binned...i have picked all plums
and am hoping that whatever problem it is..(WAS??) is resolved
but I guess I will not know until next year

my other trees..3 pears and 2 apples and all in full leaf so looking unaffected

any thoughts that I could consider please?

[bungeejumper]

Might be magnesium deficiency, which turns the leaves yellow in a rather artistic herringbone kind of way. https://www.yara.co.uk/crop-nutrition/p ... Slide=6170

But it might also be that the tree has simply exhausted itself with too much work! Thirty plums after two years seems more than satisfactory. Possibly more water uptake than the roots can provide?

You see, plum trees don't have much common sense. An apple tree with more juvenile apples than it can cope with will shed the surplus in June, but a plum tree will go right on and will try to bring all the excess fruits to maturity. Some years ago we had nearly a tonne of ripening plums, many of which did nothing better than break the branches.

Whatever the cause, this has been a very stressful year for soft fruit trees. Try dissolving a couple of Alka Seltzer and pouring around the roots, in case it's the magnesium problem.

BJ

[bungeejumper]

Try dissolving a couple of Alka Seltzer and pouring around the roots, in case it's the magnesium problem.

Whoops, quick update: it looks like Alka Seltzer isn't a magnesium-carrying brand. Pretty well any brand of liver salts (eg https://www.amazon.co.uk/ANDREWS-Andrew ... B004FOAWFA) will do the trick.

Incidentally, the early loss of the leaves might also fit the description of a magnesium deficiency. Symptoms of a mag shortage include disruption of the abscission layer, which decides when the plant will shed its leaves.

BJ

[malkymoo]

Could it just be lack of water, two years is not long for a tree to get established, and there has been a lot of hot dry weather. Certainly some newly planted trees around where I live look as if they are suffering from water stress. Have you been giving it any water?

[monabri]

Our new plum tree got hit by greenfly..crawling with the blighters. No amount of spray with diluted washing up liquid got rid of them.

[88V8]

OH is in the kitchen as I write, making plum & orange jam.

Our plums, mostly inherited wildings, are fabulously overcropped. The mild spring seems to have allowed a very full blossom set
One tree in the west of the garden - stands perhaps 20ft tall - was bent over by those several days of predominant westerlies and now the tip is touching the ground. All the trees are carrying multiples of their usual load. I should have thinned the crop but didn't.
I doubt that the trees will ever recover their stature and now it's past time for pruning them, so a bit of a disaster.

As BJ said, they don't have much sense. I recall an old Czar many many years ago breaking its branches with an overcrop, but that was an old tree and brittle whereas those here are probably <20 yo and have just bent.

Our new plum tree got hit by greenfly..crawling with the blighters. No amount of spray with diluted washing up liquid got rid of them.

I have a shed full of forbidden stuff that might soon get rid of them. A bit pot luck though as most of the labels have fallen off. It might make them fatter.

V8

[bungeejumper]

OH is in the kitchen as I write, making plum & orange jam.

I used to make the most glorious plum wine, back in the day. Maybe I'd still be making it now, but it was perhaps a little bit too glorious, and I thought it best to trim the intake.

You can make it dry and pale, or heavy and sweet and very, very plummy. Dead easy, and I don't think I ever had a rogue yeast get into the brew. The best use ever for 50 or 100 kilograms of surplus plums, and fallers are fine too of course. The only problem was keeping the wasps away from the post-fermented fruit, because there was rather a lot of it and they tended to get drunk very easily.

These days we've grubbed up most of our 19th century czars, which were getting a bit past it, and we've replaced them with Victorias which have given a superb high-quality crop this year. Ice-cold plums in the fridge, mmmmmmmmm.

BJ

[sg31]

I'm envious of your Victoria plum crop. I've planted a Victoria at every house I've lived in for the last few years. For various reasons we've always moved on before they have properly got their feet down and produced a decent crop.

I managed to plant one last year which had a glorious display of blossom this year but as expected dropped the bukl of the crop when it was still tiny. About half a dozen plums held on but as it wasn't worth netting so few fruits the birds had them.

I've no intention of moving again so I'm looking forward to future crops.

[88V8]

I managed to plant one last year which had a glorious display of blossom this year but as expected dropped the bukl of the crop when it was still tiny. About half a dozen plums held on but as it wasn't worth netting so few fruits the birds had them.

I think it best not to allow new trees - less than three years say - to crop at all. Producing fruit takes an awful lot of energy best directed to growing the tree. And if planted in grass, one should keep a 3ft diameter circle free of grass in the early years to avoid root competition.

I have my beady eye on a James Grieve planted by PO. Could be 20yo. No idea what rootstock, but it wants to get big in a small space, and the taste of the fruit has deteriorated over the last 3/4 years, so I'm thinking to grub it out and replace with a Victoria.
Yes, a Victoria is a large tree but it can be grown on a clear stem, whereas the formative pruning of the apple seems to have been for a cup, so there is no clear stem and I can't be bothered with the years of attention necessary to create one.

OH loves plums, and seems to approve of the idea.
She used to make wine. Not sure she ever tried plum. We have a 2yo Romtoft in the cellar that I need to bottle, perhaps this wet weather will give me the incentive.

V8

[sg31]

I think it best not to allow new trees - less than three years say - to crop at all. Producing fruit takes an awful lot of energy best directed to growing the tree. And if planted in grass, one should keep a 3ft diameter circle free of grass in the early years to avoid root competition.

I have my beady eye on a James Grieve planted by PO. Could be 20yo. No idea what rootstock, but it wants to get big in a small space, and the taste of the fruit has deteriorated over the last 3/4 years, so I'm thinking to grub it out and replace with a Victoria.
Yes, a Victoria is a large tree but it can be grown on a clear stem, whereas the formative pruning of the apple seems to have been for a cup, so there is no clear stem and I can't be bothered with the years of attention necessary to create one.

OH loves plums, and seems to approve of the idea.
She used to make wine. Not sure she ever tried plum. We have a 2yo Romtoft in the cellar that I need to bottle, perhaps this wet weather will give me the incentive.

V8

I think the trees decide on their own not to crop to any great extent. I will follow your guide and stop them fruiting. I planted 2, the Victoria survived. The other will be replaced shortly.

I've also planted 6 dwarf cherries, I'm a glutton for fruit and work it seems, I'm having to learn about pruning. I've done my best with pruning, next years growth will tell me if I got it right.

I've also planted a few James Grieve apples over the years although my wife has decided she's no longer keen on them. I inherited a very ancient Bramley, badly diseased which the tree surgeon wanted to remove. I opted to have it chopped back almost to the trunk in an attempt to save it. It's healthy now but it's a long job getting it back to fruiting. It will never be pretty but I like it.

[bungeejumper]

I have my beady eye on a James Grieve planted by PO. Could be 20yo. No idea what rootstock, but it wants to get big in a small space, and the taste of the fruit has deteriorated over the last 3/4 years, so I'm thinking to grub it out and replace with a Victoria.
Yes, a Victoria is a large tree but it can be grown on a clear stem, whereas the formative pruning of the apple seems to have been for a cup, so there is no clear stem and I can't be bothered with the years of attention necessary to create one.

I'm wondering whether your James Grieve might have been grown on a standard rootstock - ie, from a pip? Ours is one of the original Victorian orchard trees in the garden, and it has now settled down to a pleasant height of 12 feet or so, after much lopping and shaping from us. (It had had 30 years of neglect when we arrived, but it was on a dwarfing rootstock. Such a nice shape, like an apple tree in a children's story book.) The apples don't keep more than a couple of months, but by golly they're delicious in September. James Grieve are now becoming quite fashionable again!

Our Victoria plums are fan-trained against an east-facing wall, rather than as free-standing trees. Probably a south-facing wall would have been better, but that's where the pears are. They do need supporting wires like that, though, or they won't stand the weight of their own fruit.

I do like sg31's story about the Bramley that was rescued from the dead. Six of our 28 apple trees were rotting when we bought the house, and most of the six had to go, but we spared a spindly Beauty of Bath because it looked as though it might do service as a pole for a washing line. The tree had other ideas, however - it sprouted vigorously from its chopped-off top and was soon back on form. You can't keep a good tree down!

BJ

[sg31]

I do like sg31's story about the Bramley that was rescued from the dead. Six of our 28 apple trees were rotting when we bought the house, and most of the six had to go, but we spared a spindly Beauty of Bath because it looked as though it might do service as a pole for a washing line. The tree had other ideas, however - it sprouted vigorously from its chopped-off top and was soon back on form. You can't keep a good tree down!

BJ

Vigorously is certainly the word I would use. The year after taking drastic action we got loads of very long very straight water shoots. I took out half, maybe two thirds of these. The next year they thickened out somewhat and grew higher, the trunk also tried to get in on the act with shoots appearing all over. These were rubbed out on a weekly basis. I thinned out more water shoots the next winter.

The following spring, loads of side shoots on all the branches, more upwards growth, no blossom. I took out 3 of the remaining shoots /branches that winter and pruned back the side shoots.

Last winter 2 more branches were taken out and this spring we had blossom for the first time. Just 2 apples formed. There was a recent thread on TLF about the lack of a pollinator. We did remove a really sick apple tree from nearby so maybe that is the problem. I've ordered a small Red Falstaff to go in this winter. I know Bramleys are triploid but hope the red Falstaff will help to some extent.

I've no idea if I've pruned the old Bramley correctly or not. I've followed RHS guidelines as best I could. At least it is still alive and hopefully it will appreciate my amateur efforts.

[88V8]

I've no idea if I've pruned the old Bramley correctly or not. At least it is still alive and hopefully it will appreciate my amateur efforts.

Gratifying for you, Too easy to give up on an old tree,
The main ailment of old Bramleys, I believe, is American Blight. Hard to deal with on a large tree, but if you catch it early the Blighters can be successfully assaulted with a hand mister loaded with meths.

V8