victoria plum

[gullivar33]

Please help, I have a lovely victoria plum tree bearing loads of fruit now my question is if I plant a stone,pip in the garden will it come up the same ?

[nickdub]

It will be a plum, if it grows, but not a Victoria.

If you want to propagate from your tree checkout info on grafting and budding on the internet.

[gullivar33]

If the stone comes from inside of the plum why will it not be victoria ?

[ameno]

If the stone comes from inside of the plum why will it not be victoria ?

Because most fruit trees tends to cross-pollinate with other varieties, so whatever comes up will be a cross between Victoria and something else. That's how new varieties are created in the first place.

Also, even if it did come up true to type, seed-grown trees take years before they start cropping and they grow massive. Normally fruit trees are grafted into dwarfing rootstocks which keep the tree at a more manageable size and make it crop sooner.

[Dave8abond]

If the stone comes from inside of the plum why will it not be victoria ?

Basically your plum tree has had sex with other plum trees ( via pollinating insects). The stone (or pip of an apple etc) is the resulting baby. The fruit surrounding it is like a womb to protect it until its ready to go out into the world and make its own way. This womb or fruit is created by the mother tree and so will always be the same ie Victoria. If that baby plum tree (the stone) survives to adulthood then, just as with humans, it will not be a clone of its mother.

This is why fruit trees are grafted/ budded

[BUFFS]

i found two young plants by my victoria plum and a greengage, i dont know if they are both the parents but the fruit is cherry sized and quite a good flavour and its growing in a 50ltr tub quite happily, the other one hasnt done anything yet so we will see what happens as it is younger than the other.

[ameno]

i found two young plants by my victoria plum and a greengage, i dont know if they are both the parents but the fruit is cherry sized and quite a good flavour and its growing in a 50ltr tub quite happily, the other one hasnt done anything yet so we will see what happens as it is younger than the other.

I rather suspect they may have grown as suckers from the rootstock.
The common rootstock varieties for plums are all actually a different species, namely the cherry plum, and those fruit you describe would fit that.
St Julian A (the most common plum root stock), specifically, is actually supposedly tasty and a good fruiter, albeit can grow a bit large, so it's probably that.

[BUFFS]

the new plants were too far away from the parent plants to be suckers, over 10 ft away each one, the older plant gives cherry sized fruit that taste of sweet plums but no fruit ever on the other, so we get a bowl of fruit each year but never get a glut..

[ameno]

the new plants were too far away from the parent plants to be suckers, over 10 ft away each one, the older plant gives cherry sized fruit that taste of sweet plums but no fruit ever on the other, so we get a bowl of fruit each year but never get a glut..

How big is the parent tree? Because you can get suckers as far out as you get roots, and they can spread pretty far. I have an 8 year old plum tree which sent up a sucker 8 feet from the tree this year.

[Dave8abond]

I constantly get St julian A suckers 10ft or so from the base of the tree. St Julian is thorny, producing small fruits.

[ameno]

I constantly get St julian A suckers 10ft or so from the base of the tree. St Julian is thorny, producing small fruits.

Thorny, you say? Mine is St Julian A and the sucker wasn't thorny at all. Although I caught it at about 2 feet, so maybe it only becomes thorny once it matures more?

[Dave8abond]

Quote from Walcot nursery 'On its own St Julien will result in a shrubby quite thorny tree producing damson like fruits'. https://walcotnursery.co.uk/product/plum-rootstock/

A couple of years ago i was working in a large neglected orchard. They had 30 or so plums on St Julian and there were 6 to 8ft suckers everywhere that very much fitted the above description. I've never grown any out personally.