Wild Canada Plum (native)

[SwampDonkey]

I was just curious if anyone has seen any wild canada plum lately. When I was a kid we had some along the line fences, but they seem to be all dead now. I think they are more liable to grow at the edge of a marsh in the wild. I have seen them near field rock piles sometimes. The plums are small, and red and ripen after the first heavy frost in fall.

Link

Wine making

[slowzuki]

We have a plum tree in my parents front yard at the edge of the swamp, but I would hesitate to proclaim it is wild.  It produces plums sometime in fall.  My sister made a pie out of em one year I think she leaves em alone now.  It is growing with black cherrys and alders.

Maybe it is this "Beach plum (Prunus maritima)" http://plants.usda.gov/cgi_bin/plant_profile.cgi?symbol=PRMA2

[SwampDonkey]

I think beach plum grows out along the coastal inlets. These canada plums are quite thorny. It almost seems like a pipe dream to me, but for some reason I recall that it was a host for some disease that affects agricultural crops, and therefore may have been its down fall. Don't quote me on that. I have to do some more homework to be sure. Usually if its a host plant its some kind of rust fungus.

[SwampDonkey]

Only thing I could dig up was the plum pox virus which only affects Prunus species and is not a specific thread from wild Canada plum. This disease does not affect cherries, well not yet. Only a matter of time and there will probably be a mutant strain affecting them to.  

[SwampDonkey]

Here's a good site for info on the Canada Plum. Dr. Powell taught 'dendrology' and 'tree development and structure'. I remember his labs were quite intense and he was very nit-picky on detail.

http://www.atl.cfs.nrcan.gc.ca/index-e/what-e/publications-e/afcpublications-e/mx212-e/canadaplum-e.html

[Tom]

We have a plum that we chase through the season like you do.  Ours is called a Chickasaw Plum and I've eaten many a pound of them.  I sure would hate to see something happen to them.  Their invironment keeps being run over by development, a much worse fate than disease.

[SwampDonkey]

I think I only have one wild canada plum behind the house. I have to go check it out for fruit because it may be an apple. Some apple trees are very thorny to. There's hardly anyone locally that even knows of wild plum because its so uncommon. Some texts suggest it's only in south central Canada and its not true.

[slowzuki]

Swampy our plum tree is actually still alive, there are 6 plums on it at the moment I believe.

I'll have to remember to get a pic.

[SwampDonkey]

My plum from the post above turned out to be a wild crabbe apple seeded from the old crabbe apple trees my father's uncle planted in the orchard.

oh well.

[slowzuki]

Well, our plum turns out it came from Quebec.  It produced about 50 plums total this year.  Our dog loves them! Let him outside and he tears around the yard to it and starts searching the ground, sucks em up and spits out the seeds!
Ken

My plum from the post above turned out to be a wild crabbe apple seeded from the old crabbe apple trees my father's uncle planted in the orchard.

oh well.

[SwampDonkey]

I guess they are all dead around here now. My uncle used to have some along his pasture, but the cattle have killed them out. I know of only one site now with them and its up in Foley Brook near Salmon River in Victoria County. Try starting some from seed. Are yours the purple Stanley Plums? The nurseries sell alot of those here, but the black knot fungus gives them grief.  

[slowzuki]

Our plum has lived its life next to about 200 cherries all with black knot with no evidence of it on itself.

The plums are dark purple/blue almost.

Ken

I guess they are all dead around here now. My uncle used to have some along his pasture, but the cattle have killed them out. I know of only one site now with them and its up in Foley Brook near Salmon River in Victoria County. Try starting some from seed. Are yours the purple Stanley Plums? The nurseries sell alot of those here, but the black knot fungus gives them grief.  

[SwampDonkey]

Sounds like Stanley, the wild plums are red wine colored and small. My Stanley plum has a branch up high with black knot.

[SwampDonkey]

I saw quite few of wild plum last friday over in Harcourt, New Brunswick. I was cruising a lot owned by someone in New York, and found them along the edge of an old pasture. The fruit was withered and diseased.

[slowzuki]

I've noticed our plum tree has seeded about a half dozen new ones in the area.  Pretty odd for fruit trees in our area...  not even apple trees seem to grow!

[SwampDonkey]

Apple trees are very prolific up in this area on abandoned pastures. I have an apple tree on my woodlot that has Dang nice apples on it when picked in October. My grandfather's uncle had fields years ago where he grew turnips and such. Its all grown up now, for the last 50 years. On the very back end there is an old apple tree still alive from back in those years he farmed. He died the year after the Dam was built on Tobique in 1955, his homestead was where the dam is. It was exproapriated and the buildings demolished. My mother's uncle took videos of them building the dam, he had a color camera back then. He's deceased now and the cousins have it on VHS now. Even have some shots of the old Tobique Steam engine.

Uncle has an old Macintosh variety that the wind knocked down and its broken on the main stem, but one piece of bark supports life and there were apples on that Dang thing this year.

Slozuki: I know there are all kinds of wild apple trees down that way. You gots to open your eyes to see 'ole boy.    


cheers

[bitternut]

I live along the south shore of Lake Ontario and there are lots of orchards in my area. Mostly apple but there happens to be an orchard right across the road from my house that are Stanley Prunes. I grew up on a local fruit farm and prunes were prune shaped and purple ( oval sort of ). We had Stanley and a German variety that were smaller ( Thornburg I think ). We also had plums that came in several colors. Some were yellow, some were red and some were a pale green. The plums all had one thing in common.........they were ROUND. To me its a plum if its round and its a prune if its oval.

Anyways the orchard across the road has been neglected the last few years and a lot of root sprouts have popped up and grown into small trees. These sprouts are a plum rootstock of some type and these wild trees bear either small yellow or small red plums. They also have some pretty nasty thorns. Don't know if they were Canada Plums but they could be.

[SwampDonkey]

bitternut

There was an old lady with some type of yellow plum from Europe and it has the nicest plums you could ever eat. No disease and no worms. I can't even buy a decent plum in the food market. They're all hard and tasteless.

Its possible some of those thorny plums are Canada Plum, wouldn't know unless I looked up close to see the branches and leaves.

Another thought came to mind, some folks grow those Apricots that can be quite thorny too. I grew some here, but the frost always got the blossoms and they died out after 10 years. They called them Siberian (Manchurian) Apricot, but our winter is more mild than in Siberia, so I think it was just a horticultural mess up.

[slowzuki]

Oh lots of apple trees, they just don't seem to reproduce.  With my great powers of observation I have noticed mainly the small green variety of apples that everyone calls crab apples.  The other variety common here produces a larger fruit that ripens early.  It is about halfway between the crab apple size and the modern commercial apples.

The crap apples sometimes seem to only produce fruit every other year.  My parents have oh about 2 dozen on their 1.5 acres but all are mature, not a littl'un in sight.

On our 35 acres there are only 2 mature and one 2 or 3 yo tree.  Across the road on our leased NBPower land there is about a dozen or so, all mature.

Slozuki: I know there are all kinds of wild apple trees down that way. You gots to open your eyes to see 'ole boy.    


cheers

[SwampDonkey]

Fruit of Prunus nigra (Canada pum)



oil glands on leaf of Canada plum

I finally found reference to a disease associated with Canada plum and potatoes in 'Native Trees of Canada'. There are aphids on the plum that carries the potato disease that don't harm the tree or fruit.

Link Here

This 'may' be one reason for its (plum) decline in our area and in northern Maine. Since, this is a major potato producing area as well as thier seed. Aphids are very interesting critters that can produce live young (clones) without sex.

[SwampDonkey]

Seems a fungus has begun fruiting on my Stanley plum in the yard. Actually, looks like two different species of fungus by the looks of the shelf it's sending out the tree lenticels. On close inspection the bark looks green, but I found a couple holes the size of your finger and the wood inside is rotten. This fungal growth is almost from the ground up to 6 feet. Guess I gotta cut it down this spring. I first thought it was sapsucker pecks, but went out and sure enough decay fungus of some sort. Wasn't there last fall. 

[SwampDonkey]

I found out what hits the leaves once in awhile to.

Pear Slug. It's actually a sawfly larva and is slimy like a slug in larval stage. Posted link in case someone might have it on their tree.