Help with disappointing plum trees please

[Randommoose]

Hi,
I posted here when I was planning on getting some fruit trees:
http://www.growfruitandveg.co.uk/gra...-advise-6.html

And asked about pruning/shaping the plum trees since I got them:
http://www.growfruitandveg.co.uk/gra...ase_71806.html

However, neither plum tree has grown more than 4 inches per year since I got them two years ago! They grow for about a month in spring then stop and put out the terminal buds at the ends of the branches. Both trees drop leaves all of a sudden at the start of September. Both trees tried to fruit this year. The Opal had deep purple fruits (is this correct, I thought they were supposed to be more orange?), small and sour mainly but some were edible. The Verity had deformed diseased fruits (yellow with black patches) so I pulled off the few that hadn't fallen off while they were small. The trees have put out lots of fruiting spurs in spring 2014.

They are fertilised once a year as recommended by the nursery, the ground around them kept clear. The ground is clay based loam and nice and crumbly. Doesn't waterlog, doesn't dry out. They are on a south facing fence and get sun all day. The trees are on VVA-1 rootstock as I was told Pixy would get bigger than the 7ft high, 12 ft wide I had available for each tree. VVA-1 was advertised by the nursery as a height of 7-9ft and 9ft wide. Neither tree has been pruned as they have not grown enough to need it. However one tree has had a branch removed that was incorrect for a fan trained tree (see the fan training thread above).

I have been in touch with the nursery (very highly recommended nursery on this site and others). In the first year they said it was because of the shock of planting and the cold spring. This year they have asked if the ground was waterlogged (it wasn't) and then stopped replying to emails from me.

I got 3 apple trees at the same time - they are fine. Two are growing really well, one would be apart from caterpillars keep eating all its buds and leaves!

Do you have any suggestions for what I can do to help these trees grow bigger? I have been trying to get advice from the nursery but now I am not getting any response I decided to try here.

Thanks,
Moose

[Randommoose]

This is the Opal tree:

Please excuse the weeds, they aren't like that during the tree's growing season!

This is the biggest bit of growth the Opal has done (this is 2 years of growth):


This is what the Opal looked like when it started growing in the first year I had it:

As you can see, there is not much change.

[WendyC]

How annoying that they haven't taken off after all your careful planning. My first thought is that it is something to do with the roots. Were they bare rooted or pot grown? I have had pot grown shrubs fail to thrive only to find when I investigated after a couple of years, that the rootball was dry. Now I soak any pot grown plant for a couple of hours before planting. I also use mycorrhizal fungi when planting, with good results.

[Randommoose]

They were bare root.
This is the Opal roots when it arrived:

[WendyC]

That's that theory blown then! Hopefully someone else will have another theory.

[Randommoose]

The Verity plum looks much better. It was a bigger tree when it arrived and one branch has grown about 8 inches over the two years. However, the rest of it hasn't grown that much and its fruits were deformed and diseased.
Today:

The day I got it:

First spring:

The most growth (2 years growth):

The rest of the branches have done this much or less in 2 years:

[Randommoose]

The main problem is that they grow fine for about a month then stop completely until the next year. They need more growing time!

[starloc]

My opal plums are deep purple some years, orange and purple other years

What fertillisers are you using?

around this time of year if a tree has been a bit slow on growth I throw blood fish and bone, ammonium sulfate, sulfate of potash and superphosphate a few handfulls of each around a tree that size, and some lime as stone fruits like lime for the stone production, I spread the fertiliser out a meter or so each way

I dont know the growth sped of a tree on that rootstock, as i only have own root, myroballen, pixy and stJuliana rootstocks, but all dont grow much in my soil unless I feed them, no food I get 1/2 inch growth on the pixy rootstock with fertilisers i get masses of growth

[FB.]

My guess is that the rootstock is too dwarfing for your soil. You would probably have been better with St.Julien A rootstock.
Give it another season of plentiful food and water and see what happens. If still poor growth, if it was mine I would take a gamble by waiting until late winter (February) and prune all the main branches back very hard, removing three-quarters or more of their length in hopes of increasing the root:shoot ratio to break it out of its vicious circle.
I think all those flower buds are sucking all the tree energy (flowers require huge amounts of resources and don't make any contribution to the tree) and in doing so they are stressing the tree, but a stressed tree will produce more blossom buds in the hope of reproducing before the stress kills it.

[Randommoose]

Thanks for the replies.

Fertiliser has been fish, blood and bone in March and mulch a couple of inches deep with compost.

Would it be better this year to try feeding more fertiliser in March or to (for example) feed monthly?

I have also been concerned the rootstock is too dwarf. I was originally going to get St Julian or Pixy but was told they would be too big and that VVA-1 was the only possibility for a garden. The nursery told me their VVA-1 trees put on about 6 feet of growth last year.

I watered them in the first year but was told not to water after that unless it was a drought as the roots need to go deep to get their water.

I don't really want to chop the trees so hopefully they will grow better this year. Or I will have to get used to this being their size, which is ok if they fruit properly. Considering they were £42 each I don't really want to risk damaging them. There is no way I could afford to pay that again for a replacement, that was my garden investment for a whole year!

Thanks for the suggestions.

Moose

[starloc]

Blood fish and bone is a fairly slow release so I would supplement it with some much faster release nutrients such as the ammonium sulfate etc

[Bigmallly]

Considering they were £42 each I don't really want to risk damaging them.

............I bet you don't............I've just bought some taller Plum & Cherry from £stretcher for 6 squid each.

[fishpond]

............I bet you don't............I've just bought some taller Plum & Cherry from £stretcher for 6 squid each.

.
You get what you pay for, but, £42 each---wow.
Somewhere between £15-£25 is what I would expect to pay from a good nursery.
But £42

Example
All orders are dispatched in one delivery. If your order contains both bare root and container grown plants then we can only dispatch when all plants are ready.

Any Bare Root Plum fruit trees - Availability means available for supply from Nov to April.

Any Container grown Plum fruit trees - Availability means vailable for supply now.

Fruit trees are grafted onto rootstocks. Rootstocks come in 5 sizes (2 for Plum trees) see the chart below, all of our fruit trees are labelled using these codes.


Click to enlarge

VVA1 - 2.5 metres when mature. The new dwarfing rootstock for Plums and the new rootstock that commercial growers plant.

St Julien A (SJA) - 3.5 - 4 metres when mature.

Bare Root = Field grown trees that have been freshly lifted and supplied with no soil around the roots. Only available during the dormant period November-April.
10 Litre = Container grown and can be planted all year round. The size refers to the number of litres of compost that the container holds.
1 Year Maiden = A one year old tree and the size depends on the variety but in general they will be 100-125cm in height.
2 Year Bush = A two year old tree that has been pruned back in the first winter to form a bush shape. Generally trees will be 150-175cm in height with multiple side branches.


Top rated / best sellers

Victoria (AGM)
Victoria (AGM)
£17.50
Pollination group B
Rootstock
St Julien A, VVA 1
Marjorie's Seedling (AGM)
Marjorie's Seedling (AGM)
£17.50
Pollination group C
Rootstock
St Julien A, VVA 1
Opal (AGM)
Opal (AGM)
£17.50
Pollination group B
Rootstock
St Julien A, VVA 1, VVA1
Plum Fruit Trees

Plums are the most popular of the stone fruit and they are also the easiest to grow. Many plum varieties are self fertile. There are two rootstocks to chose from; St Julien A which is semi vigorous and will reach a height of 4 metres when mature and Krimsk 1, also know as VVA1 which is dwarfing and will reach a height of 2.5metres when mature. We supply the highest quality plum fruit trees and plants, and pack them with great care.

Category name >
Temp
Columnar Plum Skyscraper
£25.60
Rootstock
Dwarf
Temp
Avalon
£17.50
Pollination group B
Rootstock
St Julien A, VVA 1
Temp
Czar (AGM)
£17.50
Pollination group B
Rootstock
St Julien A, VVA 1
Temp
Excalibur
£18.20
Pollination group A
Rootstock
VVA 1
Temp
Jubilee
£18.20
Pollination group B
Rootstock
VVA 1
Temp
Lizzie
£18.60
Rootstock
St Julien A
Temp
Marjorie's Seedling (AGM)
£17.50
Pollination group C
Rootstock
St Julien A, VVA 1
Temp
Opal (AGM)
£17.50
Pollination group B
Rootstock
St Julien A, VVA 1, VVA1
Temp
Seneca
£17.50
Pollination group B
Rootstock
St Julien A
Temp
Victoria (AGM)
£17.50
Pollination group B
Rootstock
St Julien A, VVA 1

[Randommoose]

They were more expensive as they were fan trained 2 year old trees. But yes, I wouldn't but from there again. I wasn't impressed with the fan training either, it was very uneven. A lot of the pruning cuts were poor too, the wrong direction (sloping towards the bud) or a long way away from the bud. Ah well!

Moose

[FB.]

I was originally going to get St Julian or Pixy but was told they would be too big and that VVA-1 was the only possibility for a garden. The nursery told me their VVA-1 trees put on about 6 feet of growth last year.

Not all garden conditions are as good as nursery conditions. Even St.Julien A, MM106 and Quince A can't usually survive in my soil without feeding, watering and some aphid control as I found out to my cost years ago. I still have a number of MM106 and Quince A rootstock 'trees' which stopped growing at about 3-4ft in size, having barely grown since planting and only growing a few inches per year.

To get about 1ft of new growth per season in untreated conditions I need to use Brompton (plum), M25 (apple), MM111 (apple), Pyrus.communis (Pear seedling) and Pyrodwarf (not as dwarf as the name implies) and of those the big pear and plum rootstocks are still not always happy due to their water needs.

In my area in the distant past plums and pears were grown alongside the drainage ditches at the edge of apple orchards so they had a chance of finding the water they need.