Plum varieties for Zone 9?

[gumbo2go]

Can you share your best varieties of plum trees for zone 8 or 9?
Many thanks,
JJ

[AndrewAZ]

I'm in 9b.  Beauty, Scarlett, Scarlett beauty, green gage, Shiro, methely.   Also, from website mail order natives, I ordered 2 prunus augustifolium, Odom and Guthrie.  They are tasty and do fantastic at my house.

[Galatians522]

Great topic! I have a thread looking for Gulf Series plum scion wood. We grew all of them except Gulf Rose here in Florida 9b at one point in the past 30 years. Gulf Gold and Gulf Ruby were the best flavored, but the trees got diseases and were not long lived. Gulf Beauty was my least favorite, but Gulf Blaze was good. Scarlet Beauty is the only one that is self fertile and is the best adapted to my area. It was developed by a man in Wachula not by the University of Florida so it may bloom too early in your zone. I have not tasted them, but Robusto and Byron Gold might be good for you to check out as well. Anything with native genetics seems better adapted and less prone to disease. Bruce, Guthrie, Odoham, Excelsior, Hypauxlo, etc. are native plum selections/hybrids that have a reputation for being very disease resistant. I am growing Guthrie at the moment--if it blooms well in the next 4-5 years, I will give some of the others a try.

[JCorte]

Burgundy plum has beautiful deep wine red colored sweet flesh and the skin has no tartness, has berry flavors.  Flavor Grenade is a plum, apricot hybrid that is one of the best tasting fruits with great texture.

Janet

[spaugh]

The flavor king tastes really good to me.  It tastes like a plum but better.  I had a beauty plum and top worked it with flavor king. 

[gumbo2go]

Thanks for your info. Started with an Ozark and grafting some santa rosa onto it . More varieties to come!

[Galatians522]

Figured that I would be good to report back. The Guthrie plum I purchased from Mail Order Natives in October had a few blooms this year in a 3 gal pot. And we only got 75 hours of chill. Also, Flavorella plumcot bloomed heavily. I was shocked to see how little chill it needed.

[850FL]

I'm in upper 9a FL. From what I have tried only Santa Rosa and methley survive here well. And Chickasaw, and seedlings, but.. I tried Bruce, yellow, excelsior, and possibly another type or two and they have died.
( excelsior and Bruce may have gotten too shaded. But I honestly don't think that's really what killed them). To be fair the yellows I tried last year may have had some type of gummosis or bacteria when I got them on clearance.. but for ones that I have tried healthy, insects and bacteria/fungus are what usually get them.
I'm trying a bruce again for the heck of it. Will plant it way away from any shade this time!

[Galatians522]

I'm in upper 9a FL. From what I have tried only Santa Rosa and methley survive here well. And Chickasaw, and seedlings, but.. I tried Bruce, yellow, excelsior, and possibly another type or two and they have died.
( excelsior and Bruce may have gotten too shaded. But I honestly don't think that's really what killed them). To be fair the yellows I tried last year may have had some type of gummosis or bacteria when I got them on clearance.. but for ones that I have tried healthy, insects and bacteria/fungus are what usually get them.
I'm trying a bruce again for the heck of it. Will plant it way away from any shade this time!

That is interesting. Do you happen to know if any of the failed trees were on peach root stock? I have a Scarlet Beauty plum on peach, native plum, and self rooted. Peach is by far the poorest performer even though it is the recommended rootstock. I believe it is the reason many plums are not longer lived here in Florida. The tree on native plum has grown the best, but the own rooted tree seems to be doing fine and is far better than the one on Nemaguard. From now on I plan to graft all my plums to the native stock. Scarlet Beauty has been our most rock solid plum here. I wonder how it would perform for you?

[mcoambassador]

Figured that I would be good to report back. The Guthrie plum I purchased from Mail Order Natives in October had a few blooms this year in a 3 gal pot. And we only got 75 hours of chill. Also, Flavorella plumcot bloomed heavily. I was shocked to see how little chill it needed.

@galatians522 How is your Flavorella doing these days? Has it fruited these past couple years since you posted about it? Do you find it is adequately pollinated by Scarlet Beauty, or by another tree on your property?

I'm considering giving my Scarlet Beauty a mate, and wonder if Flavorella is an option.

[Galatians522]

Figured that I would be good to report back. The Guthrie plum I purchased from Mail Order Natives in October had a few blooms this year in a 3 gal pot. And we only got 75 hours of chill. Also, Flavorella plumcot bloomed heavily. I was shocked to see how little chill it needed.

@galatians522 How is your Flavorella doing these days? Has it fruited these past couple years since you posted about it? Do you find it is adequately pollinated by Scarlet Beauty, or by another tree on your property?

I'm considering giving my Scarlet Beauty a mate, and wonder if Flavorella is an option.

The Falvorella at my Dad's has continued to bloom every year in March (about 2 weeks after Scarlet Beauty) and has set no fruit. The Guthrie plum at my house had more blooms this year and would have been about the same time as Flavorella but they were not close enough in geography to cross pollinate. You'll probably need one of the gulf series plums to pollinate Scarlet Beauty. When we had Gulf Blaze and Gulf Beauty before they bloomed close enough to work well. I think it was probably Gulf Beauty that was doing the job since it is supposedly slightly lower chill. It also is reported to have better resistance to plum leaf scald--the disease that ultimately kills most plums here in Florida. Scarlet Beauty seems to be highly resistant if grafted to plum roots.

[DavidBYE]

I believe Galatians522 is correct about the plums on peach root stock. About 50% of the the plums I purchased died within 2 years. All of my seedlings 100% have been successful. Over the years I have purchased many peaches (maybe 12 or so) all but one have died within 2 years. I recently acquired a floridaguard peach seedling. We will see how this one does. If it dies, I am done with peaches and will be grafting my own plums on flatwood plum root stock.