victoria plum tree problems

[Normans Mum]

Hi
I have an old (probably about 20ish years) victoria plum tree at my allotment plot. Last year it had five plums on it, all of which ripened whilst we were on holiday and the wasps had them !
My problem is that it is very large, has numerous leaders and presumably needs a good prune. We pruned it last year and cut some of the leaders back (resulting in the 5 plums it then produced). This year we've had some blossom, but as far as I can see no fruitlets forming I really don't know what to do with this tree, to be honest. It's been fed and appears to be in good leaf. Do they just stop producing fruit after a while? I thought plum tress lived for 30 years or so? HELP!

[rustylady]

Feeding fruit trees leads to lots of leafy growth, as you have found.

I have a very old Victoria in my back garden. Last year very few plums on it, but this year it is absolutely loaded.

FB is our fruit expert, and I expect he'll be along soon. In the meantime could you post a couple of pictures of the tree as this will help him assess what needs to be done.

[WendyC]

We have a plum tree of unknown variety, I think it is meant to be ornamental as it has purple leaves. It does tend to be a feast or famine type tree. Last year it has a reasonable amount but I think there is no fruit this year as when the blossom was out it was so cold there was nothing out to pollinate it. On a very abundant year I do tend to thin the fruits as it was suggested to me that this might even out the fruiting. It does seem to work. No help I know if you've no fruit to thin!

[FB.]

I think the tree needs suitable pruning at a suitable time, and consideration given to whether it's being over-fed.

Several points worth making:
1.
Trees are designed to grow as large as possible as quickly as possible and not waste precious energy on fruiting, in order to outgrow any nearby competing plants.
A small tree which put lots of energy into fruit and didn't grow much would soon be shaded-out by competing trees and would not have a long life.
Only when only the biggest, strongest tree survives to dominate an area - after the nearby soil is mostly depleted of nutrients from the preceding tree-size-war - it will begin to fruit.

By limiting the supply of water and nutrients a tree will begin cropping sooner. Excess nitrogen in particular will encourage growth and no fruit.

2.

Plum trees are often biennial croppers. Huge crop one year, sparse crop the next. Bad weather can prevent bees pollinating the flowers which may mean poor crops even in the usual heavy-cropping years.

3.

Plum tree pruning is best done just as the tree comes active in spring. Pruning can be done in mid-summer but must only involve shortening of the new shoots; woody shoots should not be cut back. Older trees in particular are more easily killed by hard pruning.

------------

I suggest post up some pictures of the tree when you get a chance, so we can see how big it is, its branch structure and so on. Then a plan of action can be devised, which can take 2-3 seasons to complete if the tree has been allowed to get too big for several years. Pruning is best done lightly on an annual basis, rather than butcher a tree to within an inch of its life once every decade.

[littleexperience]

as FB says put the tree under stress stop feeding it and give it a prune in spring and if possible plant some flowers round the base of the tree something the tree is not used to.a few years back when i was on holiday in italy i notiched men giving the trunks of olive and peach trees a good beating with large sticks i asked the men why they were doing this as there was nothing growing on the trees at the time simple he said another big crop next year the more stress the better.i have never needed to try this beating technique myself yet but maybe someday

[boundtothesoil]

I'm sure FB's advice is right, but If you were to decide to undertake a really 'brutalist' set of amputations, this isn't a bad time of year to do it.

My father, who was no gardener, once took a bow-saw to an unthrifty, mature Victoria plum tree in our garden, when I was a kid. He butchered/reduced it in one go to something looking like a set of stag's antlers. My mother went ballistic but, amazingly, the tree survived, new shoot growth was rapid and plums returned a few years later.

[FB.]

I'm sure FB's advice is right, but If you were to decide to undertake a really 'brutalist' set of amputations, this isn't a bad time of year to do it.

My father, who was no gardener, once took a bow-saw to an unthrifty, mature Victoria plum tree in our garden, when I was a kid. He butchered/reduced it in one go to something looking like a set of stag's antlers. My mother went ballistic but, amazingly, the tree survived, new shoot growth was rapid and plums returned a few years later.

If he pruned it just as the buds began to open in spring, it could have boosted its growth. Timing is crucial though - as are the growing conditions after the pruning.
If it is pruned after growth is well under way the tree may lose too many resources in the bits cut off.
But if it's done just at the right time (a window of a few weeks in spring) it works as a growth multiplier by bottling up the tree growth hormones (because it was about to use them, then the opening buds were removed so it could not vent-out the hormomes).

So after losing the buds which were all prepped to start growing, the tree is stuffed full of growth hormone and nutrients pumped up from the roots, and continues to receive lots more from the roots in an attempt to get growing.
This essentially causes a growth hormone bottleneck/overload in the branches which now have no activated buds to absorb the hormones and nutrients.
This causes huge numbers of buds to burst into life under the influence of the overload - and the tree growth will be supercharged; often it will even ignore the first frosts (and risk frost damage or canker infection) as it continues under the influence of a double-dose of growth hormone which is needs to work-off before it goes dormant.

The problem with old trees is that the timing needs to be good - or lucky. If the growing conditions are good (especially sufficient water) a tree will be better able to bounce back. In my area, with usually-dry summers, messing with the canopy once summer arrives is very risky because the roots may not be able to find enough water and nutrients to resume growth due to the dry soil (roots shut down in dry soil).

[dilettante]

My plums themselves are oozing sap, the branches seem ok, and some of them have this yellowy fungus looking thing growing on them. We only got the tree last year, it's fruited fine this year, but now this is happening. I cut one open and there are no maggots or anything as far as I can see. There was a massive aphid infestation earlier this year, but that's cleared up following soapy water treatment. Anyone got any ideas what it is or how to treat it? I'll be super grateful.

[rustylady]

Looks like brown rot on your plums Dilettante. Brown rot / Royal Horticultural Society

[dilettante]

Looks like brown rot on your plums Dilettante. Brown rot / Royal Horticultural Society

Oh cool, thank you. The RHS is a little unclear to me, if I remove all the bad fruit and make sure none are left on over winter, will I get healthy plums next year?

[rustylady]

Whereabouts are you Dilettante? How big is your tree, and is it in a pot or in open ground?

I usually get a few fruit on my Victoria affected by brown rot. I don't think you can prevent it completely but removing suspect fruit as soon as you spot any signs of damage really helps. The rot is worse in humid weather and if the fruit are crowded.

[FB.]

Probably some sort of brown rot.
I find that if plums experience heavy rain after a long dry spell, the fruits swell so quickly that the skin splits and the fruit rots or gets eaten by wasps.
Plums badly need a steady supply of moisture (especially when grown on dwarf or medium-vigour roots such as Pixy or St.Julien) and is why NorthWest England, with its usually-plentiful rainfall, was a major plum-growing region in the past.
In my low-rainfall area, plums were often planted alongside drainage ditches, or irrigated, or planted on the strongest roots available (e.g. Myrobalan or seedling).

[dilettante]

Whereabouts are you Dilettante? How big is your tree, and is it in a pot or in open ground?

I usually get a few fruit on my Victoria affected by brown rot. I don't think you can prevent it completely but removing suspect fruit as soon as you spot any signs of damage really helps. The rot is worse in humid weather and if the fruit are crowded.

The tree is about two metres tall planted in the ground and I live in London. I found another one that had started to split and ooze sap so I removed it. Slowly but surely I'm dwindling down to zero plums.

Probably some sort of brown rot.
I find that if plums experience heavy rain after a long dry spell, the fruits swell so quickly that the skin splits and the fruit rots or gets eaten by wasps.
Plums badly need a steady supply of moisture (especially when grown on dwarf or medium-vigour roots such as Pixy or St.Julien) and is why NorthWest England, with its usually-plentiful rainfall, was a major plum-growing region in the past.
In my low-rainfall area, plums were often planted alongside drainage ditches, or irrigated, or planted on the strongest roots available (e.g. Myrobalan or seedling).

Thanks, I had been leaving it a lot recently, though I had noticed it's started to look a bit sad so I'll take to watering it more regularly. The weather recently has been very dry with heavy rain sometimes. Because of the way my raised beds got built it's in the middle of one of those, though the trunk isn't in the soil. What I'm saying is the roots have lots of compost and wood (because I'm trying woody beds) on top. Would that help or hinder do you think?

[rustylady]

Could you add your location to your profile Dilettante please? Then it will show up on your posts.

You say your tree is about two metres tall, but do you have any idea how old it is?

[FB.]

The tree is about two metres tall planted in the ground and I live in London. I found another one that had started to split and ooze sap so I removed it. Slowly but surely I'm dwindling down to zero plums.



Thanks, I had been leaving it a lot recently, though I had noticed it's started to look a bit sad so I'll take to watering it more regularly. The weather recently has been very dry with heavy rain sometimes. Because of the way my raised beds got built it's in the middle of one of those, though the trunk isn't in the soil. What I'm saying is the roots have lots of compost and wood (because I'm trying woody beds) on top. Would that help or hinder do you think?

Changing the soil level by more than about an inch in a year can seriously upset a mature tree.
Established/mature trees don't appreciate sudden changes.

I am aware of someone who had a huge old apple tree which was very healthy and productive (estimated well over 100 years old, several metres wide, probably had several decades of life ahead of it).
Their neighbour installed an irrigation system in the next-door garden. The apple tree, with its new-found additional water supply, sucked-up excess irrigation water and put on a growth spurt. New shoots grew out of the old branches so quickly and the fruit was so numerous and so large that the sudden increase in weight broke half the main branches and split the tree down the middle.


I think you might be brewing up a variety of problems for the future. Your location may affect how the tree responds due to soil and climate.
Any chance of some pictures around the base of the trunk to see what you've done?