Plums dried on tree before ripe

Hey all. Figured now is a good time to ask (before next spring).
Last season my Stanley plum fruited for the first time (I planted it 3 years ago). It had a ton of beautiful little plums. When they were about the size of a large grape, they began to shrivel up and eventually drop. Such a bummer. Anyone have a clue what happened? I’d like to prevent this in the future.

* I don’t spray anything. Just compost and wood chips around the base.

Thanks!

Did they appear to be ripe before shriveling up?  Prunes?  I can think of several reasons why this happened.  The tree is young, think of it as a trial run.  The tree is not yet mature enough to bear fruit to the ripening point.  Not enough water and not enough nutrients could be other reasons.  My American persimmon tree just bore fruit for the first time this year, even though it had a lot of blossoms last year.  I planted it in the spring of 2017. I also have a dwarf Asian pear tree that has blossomed for several years but has not given any pears.

It was too early for them to be ripe. it probably had enough water too. Maybe nutrient deficiencies, but likely too young. Fingers crossed for next year!

Thanks

It may be one of the bacterial diseases. Take a peak through this list. Do any of these match your symptoms?

I'm in a rush just now, I did not read through their treatment suggestions. I do know there are organic options. Perhaps others here will remember what they are.

Did you take pictures? My first thoughts are:
- The tree was too young to bear fruit and, as is often the case, its first year of fruit was completely aborted whether or not it was pollinated because the root system could not possibly handle the resource needs of maturing fruit yet. This is why most fruit culture writers recommend thinning all fruit the first year it appears, and even the second year sometimes.
- Brown rot. If you had a warm and humid season, I have seen whole trees of these plums succumb to brown rot or something similar. A different year with a different climate will produce a bumper crop.

zakk barozzini wrote:Hey all. Figured now is a good time to ask (before next spring).
Last season my Stanley plum fruited for the first time (I planted it 3 years ago). It had a ton of beautiful little plums. When they were about the size of a large grape, they began to shrivel up and eventually drop. Such a bummer. Anyone have a clue what happened? I’d like to prevent this in the future.

* I don’t spray anything. Just compost and wood chips around the base.

Thanks!

Did you thin the plums? Next year, you might try removing a good proportion of the baby plums before they start getting bigger. That way the tree can put its energy into the ones that are left, and not wear itself out trying (and failing) to grow them all to maturity. Our plum tree is somewhere between 50 and 90 years old, and I still remove probably more than half the plums it sets- and even then,  it drops some of them

I did not thin the flower/fruit. Sounds like that was likely the problem because it set A LOT OF FRUIT! I'll be thinning it next year.

Thanks for the info, everyone!

Howdy!
I know this matter has been settled by group consensus, and it makes sense. It also points out some wonderful, nearly magical mechanisms that exist and that we, as people who work with plants and animals  just accept without thinking.
Plants and animals do trial runs, experiment, and gather themselves before launching into the miracle of what they're there for. Chickens have 'pullet eggs', 'wind eggs', and go broody on rocks. Plants set too many flowers, too early, and will drop excess or premature fruit. I know mammalian critters sometimes go through 'false' circumstances.
It's all a wonderful mess and I love that it works that way. Happy little miracles, even if it doesn't work the first, or second, or ... time.

I'm back a year later (well... a bit more than a year) and had nearly the same issue!

We had a late April hard frost that took out 60-70% of the blossoms on the same plum tree. So I figured I wouldn't have to thin them... nature did! All was going well, plums were looking healthy, I sprayed them with some liquid fish/neem a couple times, no problems at all. Then sometime in early June they started dropping again. BUT this time instead of drying on the tree then dropping, they were perfect looking and started dropping... 100% loss. I cannot figure out what is going on. The tree (with annual pruning) is 9-10 tall and has been in the ground for 3-4 years.

Anyone have any ideas?

Were there any pollinators buzzing around?
Trees will drop flowers if there's no pollination happening. There's no reason to waste the energy to build up fruit if there's no seed to spread.

I also think there are conditions with lack of water and/or wind doing something to fruit trees. Let me go research. I have the vague memory of something ....

Kristine Keeney wrote:I also think there are conditions with lack of water and/or wind doing something to fruit trees. Let me go research. I have the vague memory of something ....

I feel that Kristine is on the right track.  These conditions sound like a lack of water to me.