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Plum tree questions

mort

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Joined
15 Nov 2015
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They say the stupid questions are the ones you don't ask and i'm struggling to find any answers so welcome help.

I bought a Victoria plum for my brother last winter and when I went to plant it I saw it was just a branch grafted to root stock that had an extremely poor root system, clearly hacked so it would fit in the sized pot. I planted it with the attention of watering heavily and maybe pruning it down when it began to open so it didn't stress the roots to much. Long story short it never opened all year, never even looked like it would. I gave it the same care as I would for any new tree through its first year but nothing. I scratched both the root stock and graft and they are still green but no sign of any new root development at all (I moved it down my allotment a month or so ago). So my question, is it likely a gonna or could it come back? I've had a similar thing happen before where the root stock was dormant for a whole year and came back the next (although the graft had died).

and my second question while i'm here. I bought a new plum today and looking at its pollination partners I was surprised when its own variety wouldn't pollinate it (the only variety available locally). When I was researching I saw that sometimes varieties often need different varieties as pollination partners rather than their own variety but couldn't find why. So if anyone could enlighten me i'd be grateful. Its partially self fertile so I should get a small crop even if I don't add a partner.
 
I'd have guessed the graft died, but if it's still alive then I'd vote for could come back. I think fruits can be fussy about the right cold/warm combo and if it wasn't taken care of right then maybe it budded to early before you got it and they were damaged or it didn't get the right wake up signals.

No. 2 - is it something to do with the fact that they aren't self fertile and other trees of the same variety are basically just 'clones' grafts of the same tree, so if it's not self-fertile with itself, it wouldn't be with an identical copy either?
 
Hi all,
.......an extremely poor root system, clearly hacked so it would fit in the sized pot.
The "clearly hacked" bit is probably correct, years ago (mid 1980's) I worked (on the open ground) for a large Nursery Stock producer, and come March time we used to grub out all the fruit trees that we hadn't sold and burn them in a big pile. The only exception was we went through the pile and any reasonably shapely trees on a dwarfing, or semi-dwarfing, stock we chopped the root down and they sold them as "containerised" fruit trees (for a premium) in the Garden Centre.

I suggested neither process could be good business in the long run, mainly because we hadn't actually sold many fruit trees, (so we had just burned ~£25,000 worth of stock, that had been grafted, had grown for at least two years etc.) and customers were going to be disappointed when they found that they had been royally cheated, but I was told that "that was the way things were done".
when I went to plant it I saw it was just a branch grafted to root stock that had an extremely poor root system.
It could be the <"the root-stock">. The more dwarfing root-stocks "work" because they don't have a lot of root, so the scion doesn't grow much even if you give it optimal growing conditions. If you don't give a fruit tree on a dwarfing root-stock excellent growing conditions they just die. Having said that it is usually more of a problem with Apples, rather than Plums (Plums are naturally fairly vigorous).
I scratched both the root stock and graft and they are still green but no sign of any new root development at all (I moved it down my allotment a month or so ago). So my question, is it likely a gonna or could it come back?
It may well be all right, if both the scion and root stock still have a green cambial layer it isn't dead. If it doesn't leaf in 2019 it's fire-wood.Usually with these the scion dies but the root-stock eventually grows.
When I was researching I saw that sometimes varieties often need different varieties as pollination partners rather than their own variety but couldn't find why. So if anyone could enlighten me i'd be grateful. Its partially self fertile so I should get a small crop even if I don't add a partner.
You should be all right with plums, they are all self-fertile to some degree. Incompatibility in plums is usually to do with flowering times, early flowering varieties will always be pollinated, because Sloe or Damson pollen will do the trick, but you have the issue with frost damage. All plum trees flower fairly early so frost is always a possibility.

Apple trees flower over a longer time period, so they have more pollination groups, I don't worry too much about pollination, I've never had any problem with fruit set. Apples are a also a bit different because a number of varieties are triploid (3n), and these can't fertilise themselves, or other apple trees.

cheers Darrel
 
Thanks for the replies.
I went down the allotment today and did the scratch test again as it looked very dry, especially the buds, and it's already firewood. It must have been slowly dying all summer and then finally dried out completely. Both the root stock and scion had died. I pulled it out and had forgotten how bad the root structure actually was. There were three roots in total all about as long as your index finger and about as thick, which for a 6ft plus tree was never going to be enough. It was treated well, mycorrhizal fungi, good fertile ground and plenty of water but it sounds like I was on a loser from the start.

It was only a ten pound tree so I think the chop and pot process is still in full force. It's now adorned with a couple of bird feeders so at least it has a use.
 
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