I'm sorry to hear that Matt. You have to get a wild strain plum like the Canwood that the U of S sells.

I don't think my Pembina or Toka did much for fruiting either. Every time they blossom it has been windy and rainy. Not bee weather.

They are healthy trees in their 4th year but without a wild plum (which all died for me during the winter) they may be barren. I'm starting from scratch again with the plugs.

Taste wise I like the taste of the Toka. Very much like candy. The Pembina is sweet and surprisingly juicy when it does set fruit. I think it would be good pie material if it could ever set in quantity.

Bottom line,..it's been a miserable cool spring, causing poor fruit
set, even when pollenized properly. Some of the apples
aborted fruit set,..cherries also.

As for most reliable plums for me is Pembina and Supreme.
Brook Gold and Red are the worst for me when it comes to fruit set.

We need WARM weather for good fruit set.

I was hoping it will be a good year since spring came late,
it's just when trees flowered I counted only 2 day's of warm temperature when bees were flying,..but that's not enough,
we need another 4 or 5 day's for fruit set.

I planted native plum last year, it is supposedly a Canada plum(Prunus nigra), from Little Tree Nursery near Saskatoon. I can't be sure yet whether I got a genuine wild plum and if it will actually do its job of pollinating Pembina and Brookred.

The native plum I planted is very small so it didn't flower this spring, but it came through the winter 100 % intact, so hopefully that is a good sign. I'll have to let you know if it actually does it's job. It would be good to know if Little Tree is a reliable place to get actual wild plum.

I'm thinking of planting "Fofonoff" and maybe "Ivanovka" next year..I think they are supposed to pollinate each other and I really want SOME plums that do well.

I've grafted all sorts of varieties onto my 'Brook Red' and yet only a few fruits have set upon BR, I hope this will much increase when the native plum branches begin to flower heavily, though Konrad has mentioned that BR is one of his worst producers, so I think I'll mostly top work this tree over.

I intend to plant another 'Pembina', my tree on the farm had produced very well when pollinated by the native plum.

I had some really nice weather around the important times. They all started to look like little pea sized plums now there is none.

Brooks plum are junk for fruit set . Waste of time.
Waneta was very promising but few weeks after pollination it got cold now most of the plums are falling off ?
I'm not sure it's the cold or the pollin ? But the little plums have hung off the tree for a month almost .the tree has only been in the ground for a winter so it might need another year.

As for a real native plum is there anybody that can help me out ?

I wanted to mention that for people who have a hard time producing plums in colder climates, native plums is the way to go. Prunus Nigra and Americana, plums are similar on both, bitter skin but the flesh is nice, juicy and sweet, still great for processing, ..you might be able to dip them in boiling water and peal.

Have some other wild plums and I think it helps to pollinate
these.

Last year, I bought a Nigra from hardy fruit tree nursery in Quebec,..when I asked, what exactly I'm getting, they said it's a seedling from a lonely isolated tree. Well,.. I didn't want a seedling, then they gave me a sucker with little root which
died,..it's shooting out from them base now and about 5 inches tall.

I'm still not sure what is Nigra and what do the flowers look like,
some sites say white, some say pink. The one from the hardy nursery is white.

About 6 years ago I grafted a pink flowering plum, it came from southern Alberta, on abandoned homestead. The guy who I got it from said that he thinks its something unique, [nice ornamental], last year it bloomed the first time and was loaded with fruits, the Americana was loaded too, only about 5 meter apart. This year my friend was visiting in southern Manitoba and cut some scion off the native Nigra there, he said that they flower pink, he remembered growing up there.

This spring both trees, [pink and americana] flowered heavy again but only the pink is loaded, the Americana has maybe 5 only plums.
NO other wild plums are loaded. I was grafting some more pinks on top of others this spring. So far, the best wild producing plum I've got. Some grafts from the southern Manitoba nigra are growing now but it will be another couple of years before I know if infact is the same as my pink, so far it
does look like it with leaves comparison.

20 years ago I bought a Brookred and a Pembina, said to be similar bloom time. When the Brookred started fruiting it was obvious this was mislabeled... some tiny yellow plum, bland, hard, unappetizing. So I cut it down. The Pembina went on in isolation to produce 5 or 10 plums per year at most, until I grafted on two scions of what I believe was "Perfection plum", which has very similar fruit to Pembina. Yield immediately went from a half-dozen plums per year to 200 or more. Then to at least 500 as the tree got bigger. Bacterial canker has been hounding this tree for years, so this winter I finally cut it down below the canker so it can regrow. So this year it has just a few plums, but here's some pics from it in 2011 when it was rocking:

Wow I wish my Pembina looked like that . I just grafted a prunus nagra on it this spring so maybe hope is a couple of years down the road

can the seed from wild plums found in the park be grown. i tried to put some in the ground but was clueless how to grow them. just forgot about them. any tips on what to do. tnx. aki

I've heard damp sand with stratification.Perhaps the fridge until sprouts appear.Konrad might know the stratification period.

The best for me in the past was to put seeds in the ground/fall.
Got a bunch come up now, including Capilano Apricot seeds.
I like to do it the easy way,...in moist sand/peat in fridge gets tricky when they start to sprout, say mid winter, what do I do then, sprouting seeds are not easy to plant and performing well in winter,...my gardening starts in spring, lol.

Hi there,

I have been lurking a bit on this thread as I try and get a bit of info on what I would like to plant for plums. I see other folks having problems with fruit set and pollination questions and have found the following articles interesting:

From U of S

http://www.fruit.usask.ca/articles/plums.pdf

Pollination chart(Bron and Sons)

http://www.bronandsons.com/assets/uploads/pollination_chart/Pollination%20Chart%20for%20Prunus%202014.pdf

Edmonton Journal 2006 Konrad et al

http://www.canada.com/edmontonjournal/news/athome/story.html?id=b0c7b5f6-b021-4c79-8dde-4a1e7a9115f8

Personally I found the U of S article very helpful to nail down the need for p. Nigra to ensure good pollination and not depend on weaker hybrids or sand cherries.

-Dave