Citrus Growers Forum

dauben · Posted: Tue 27 May, 2008 1:39 am

I don't know if anyone has noticed this in citrus, but I grafted a beauty plum to my shiro plum tree (veneer graft). I don't know if the beauty is more vigorous than shiro, but the scion has grown significantly since the graft first occurred. They started out as similar sized branches, now the beauty is about twice the size as the shiro branch.

Any comments?

Phillip

JoeReal · Posted: Tue 27 May, 2008 3:32 am

Forgot to warn you that Beauty plum tends to take over any plum it is grafted to. So you have to prune it aggressively or graft more plums to it.

dauben · Posted: Fri 30 May, 2008 12:48 am

JoeReal wrote:

Forgot to warn you that Beauty plum tends to take over any plum it is grafted to. So you have to prune it aggressively or graft more plums to it.

I could almost figure that out. Of the 4 beauty plum scions I've grafted onto the tree all of them have gone gangbusters. Next time, I think I'll skip the knife and just throw the scions at the tree. They'd probably take. Smile

The black splendor did well also. I was just shocked to see the diameter of the scion grow so much in comparison with the host. Do you think I have any danger of the branch eventually breaking?

Thanks,
Phillip

JoeReal · Posted: Fri 30 May, 2008 2:03 am

Yes, they could break if you just let it be. Vigilant summer pruning after fruit harvest should take care of that. Next year, the Beauty plum would be the first to give you fruits. If you have a good heat wave in the early season, the flavor would be fantastic. But if it is cool a week until harvest the taste would be so-so. After the harvest, prune off by removing 1/3 of the branch or graft some less vigorous ones over its other branches for balance.

dauben · Posted: Fri 30 May, 2008 2:18 am

JoeReal wrote:

Yes, they could break if you just let it be. Vigilant summer pruning after fruit harvest should take care of that. Next year, the Beauty plum would be the first to give you fruits. If you have a good heat wave in the early season, the flavor would be fantastic. But if it is cool a week until harvest the taste would be so-so. After the harvest, prune off by removing 1/3 of the branch or graft some less vigorous ones over its other branches for balance.

Thanks Joe. Fortunately, the other beauty plums I grafted to much heaftier host branches. One I even grafted to the rootstock. The one in the picture though is the funniest in the fact that that scion had grown the most and it was grafted to the smallest branch. Go figure . . .

Phillip