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Anthony Powell wrote:
Richard Esposito wrote:Heya,
Over a month ago and the other week I got some plums from the supermarket and decided to see if I could plant their seeds. Watched a video and put them in the fridge, and to my surprise as someone unfamiliar with all this, it worked. But now I'm not sure if whatever plum varieties I have would cross pollinate together, or survive where I live. The PLU codes on them are almost useless, referring to them as "Large Black" and "Large Red" plums. Luckily I took some photos of them when I still had them. I'll probably buy some seeds elsewhere soon, but it'd seem a waste to get rid of these when they're already sprouting because I don't know their variety. Wondering if the photos I have are enough for anyone here to recognize them.
These are all Asian Plums. Spherical, hard, good transporters, take a knock or two, lens-shaped stones. Can be imported from afar. Prunus salicina.
European plums are generally oval with flat stones, softer, more delicious, shorter lived. A group of them are called bullace, these have fat lens-shaped stones. Damsons and prunes are European. Prunus domestica.
P salicina is diploid, and has been crossed with cherry plum (P cerasifera) and extensively with apricot - producing pluots and apriums, depending what they've got most of. They're often called plums regardless - Flavor King is one.
European plum, though, is reckoned to be a hybrid, between cherry plum and the tetraploid sloe. Having a single set of chromosomes from one parent, and 2 from the other, makes 3 - making cell division awkward, so they double up to 6 and progress from there. Whether this leads to problems crossing with other Prunus species I don't know. BTW, you'll not that sloe suckers readily, Cherry rarely, and European plum commonly. So the latter's often grafted onto a non-suckering stock.
I had a Prunus salicina growing under a cherry plum. The latter usually suffered from pocket plum disease (Taphrina pruni), dropped is disformed fruit and got on with it. Meanwhile the P.salicina was really battered by it, dying last year. And a nearby bullace - never noticed the disease.