Fragrant, clean, sweet, easy-to-seed, large plum fruits are the dream of any gardener. Unfortunately, there are situations when the plum blossoms, but does not bear fruit. What to do? Be sure to understand the problem individually.
Plum tree: cultivation
In the central zone of the Russian Federation, plantings of this tree are concentrated in amateur gardens. As an agricultural product, after processing which you can safely get commercial benefits, the plum has no value:
- Even zoned species do not produce large yields.
- A tree in severe winters, if not completely frozen, then partially damaged.
- Introduced varieties may initially be characterized by high yields and large fruits, then the fruits may become smaller rather sharply.
- Fruiting (depending on the variety) occurs in some varieties from 4-6 years of age.
- Processing plums from pests and diseases should be carried out constantly, and this requires the vigilant attention of the gardener.
- Needstillage in trunk circles (does not tolerate weeds).
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Dislikes both drought and high humidity.
- Requires compliance with the feeding regimen.
Nevertheless, this tree remains a favorite for many gardeners: if a plum begins to bear fruit, enthusiastic owners will surely boast of a large harvest of clean and fragrant berries during a conversation.
Plum blossoms but does not bear fruit. What to do?
There may be several reasons for this:
- In order not to consider others, you need to try to remember the name of the plum variety that was bought and has already entered the fruiting age. Why is it important? Initially, plum is a self-fertile plant. This means that cross-pollination is needed to produce ovaries.
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The second reason may be improper planting of the plum when its root neck was deepened. In this situation, the bark begins to rot, and all the forces of the plant go to fight this scourge.
- Since the plum does not tolerate frost very well, you need to make sure that it does not freeze. In this situation, the empty flower is inevitable. More often, however, fruits are still formed on part of the branches.
- The reason may be the return of frost at a time when the plum blossoms. Yellowed (frozen) pistils will be evidence of this. And the fruit, even if it starts, will fly around very quickly.
- Experienced gardeners name a few more weather reasons for poor fruit set -dry spring, fog, high humidity, low temperatures and strong winds.
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The most incredible, but still not excluded from the list, will be the reason for the yellow plum sawfly to eat away the middle of the flowers. The beetle eats out moves in the buds, damaging them, thereby preventing the ovary from developing. Even with a very developed sawfly colony, when almost every flower is damaged, ovaries develop. They may then fall off, or the fetus may not fully form, but the ovaries will still be.
- Plum may not develop ovaries if it lacks nutrition. Timely feeding while alternating organic matter and minerals will help the tree.
- Too much shade on the tree can cause a barren flower. To eliminate the cause, cutting around the tree and timely cutting of extra branches is needed.
- The proximity of groundwater will not allow the plum to set fruit. Marshy soils are therefore not the best for plants, irrigation work is needed.
What if the plum is self-fertile?
Unfortunately, until now, when selling (in the markets, in supermarkets, in specialized stores, and even in nurseries), the plum variety is indicated (it's good if there is a sign or memo), but no one warns about it anywhere the need for cross-pollination.
The buyer is supposed to know the varieties and their characteristics. If the variety name is preserved, you just need to check whether it is self-pollinating or not.
If this is one of the varieties that require the neighborhood of another plum, you need to create these conditions: either plant a second tree, or graft a sprig of another variety onto the plum. Unfortunately, you will have to wait for the second seedling to reach fruiting age, which can take two to three years, and even then if the new seedling was three years old.
You can ask your neighbors if they have plum seedlings, they might be young and about to bloom. Important in this situation are the distances to the neighboring plum (from 20 to forty meters), that is, whether the bees can transfer pollen.
If a plum was already bearing fruit and suddenly stopped, the reason is the removal of the pollinator. A pollinator tree may have been cut down on the site (or near neighbors).
The reason may be the uprooting of blackthorn because of its unaesthetic appearance and pricklyness. It is important to remember here that plum (according to scientists) arose a long time ago as a result of natural crossing of cherry plum and blackthorn. Therefore, the blackthorn could simply be a plum pollinator if it bloomed with it.
How to choose planting material for plums
Since it is quite difficult to increase the yield of a plum that has been fruiting for a long time (a whole range of measures is required), it is easier to change an old tree or just plant a new one. To determine the variety, it is better to first look at the literature, read articles on the Internet.
Today, quite a lot of varieties are offered and self-pollinated, and early ripening, and early fruiting.
Beginner gardeners should be warned: do not buy varieties that you know nothing about, choose proven varieties,it is better to plant several trees at once with different ripening periods - early, middle and late. Why? Even if one of the three varieties is self-infertile, one of the two remaining varieties will pollinate it.
You can buy seedlings both with a closed (in a container) root system and with an open one (in this case, it needs to be checked for integrity and rot damage).
The thickness of the seedling at the root collar should be at least 14 cm.
Gardeners would like to know that if a plum seedling is not obtained on a rootstock (that is, not grafted), there is a possibility that it is an off-brand plant or it is a root shoot of a varietal plant. In the case of buying root shoots (even super-yielding ones), you need to be prepared for the fact that in a few years the entire garden will be in the same shoot, it is difficult to deal with this - only complete destruction.
Determination of the place and time of landing
In the regions of central Russia, plums can be planted in autumn, but then there is a high risk that it will not have time to take root.
Therefore, the gardener must know in advance how to plant a plum in the spring. A step-by-step guide, suggested by experienced gardeners, suggests that after buying a seedling, you need to decide on a planting site.
The drain should be located in an area with direct sunlight, groundwater should not be higher than two meters, the distance to the nearest trees (already overgrown, not seedlings) should not be less than four meters.
You need to plant a plum in the spring when it has not yet blossomedkidney (that is, it is at rest).
How to plant a plum tree in spring: a step by step guide
- A week (2-3 days is possible) before planting, prepare a hole 70 cm wide and the same depth. When digging, you need to separate the upper fertile layer from the lower one. (usually the depth of the infertile layer in a well-groomed garden is at a depth of thirty, a maximum of forty centimeters). The selected infertile layer (usually clay in the regions of the middle zone of the Russian Federation) must be removed from the fruit plot and used for household needs.
- A deoxidizer must be added to the fertile layer (plums do not like acidic soils) and mixed with the soil (ordinary fluff lime or dolomite flour does not quickly deoxidize the soil before planting). The deoxidizer will need 300-400 grams. Microelements must be added immediately (the quantity and composition are usually indicated on the packages).
- Immediately before planting, you need to loosen the bottom of the pit by half a bayonet.
- Pour a layer (30-30 centimeters) of fertile land. It can be purchased soil or good oily soil after cucumbers.
- Then pour a small layer of prepared soil.
- If the seedling is in a container, it must be shed, taken out, and the integrity of the horse system checked. Set on a layer of soil so that the root collar is 5-6 cm above the soil level.
- If the seedling has an open root system, it is necessary to inspect it, make sure it is safe, remove damaged and broken roots. Dip the roots in advanceprepared mash from a mixture of clay, soil and water. Drive a peg about one and a half meters high into the center of the pit, install a seedling on the north side of it, placing the roots along the pit. Fill them with a layer of prepared soil, slightly raise the seedling, while the root collar should be 5-6 cm above the soil level. Fix by loosely tying to the support.
- Around the seedling (closer to the edge of the pit, where there are no roots), pour a complex of mineral fertilizers for plums in a circle (it depends on the composition of the soil, usually superphosphate (300 grams) and potassium sulfate (70 grams)). Although there is an opinion among practicing breeders that plums should not be fed at the time of planting, since the plant is vigorous and with an abundance of food everything will grow. Mix fertilizers with soil, spill. Pour another layer of soil, spill it again, gently piercing the soil with a stick, thereby allowing the air to escape and the soil to compact.
- Fill up the soil completely. Make sure that the root neck is a centimeter and a half higher than the soil. The first subsidence will occur after watering, the final - in a few days. A high-left root collar, as well as one that has gone under the soil, is the cause of the plant's improper development.
Fight against ticks and sawflies
- Gall mites and red garden mites. Can cause significant crop damage (up to 30%). They suck the juice from the leaves, as a result, the leaves dry up and fall off, the hearths themselves shrivel, dry out. During the summer season, it can change from four to seven or eightgenerations. In the spring, before the plum blossoms (when the first generation begins to work), the trees must be treated with insecticides ("Danadim", "Fitoverm", "Fufanol").
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Cherry slimy sawfly. From the eggs laid on the leaf, larvae appear, eating the foliage to the veins. They turn into pupae, some hibernate, some go through a new life cycle in August, causing even more damage. Means of struggle before, when the plum is not yet blooming, is spraying with "Karbofos", "Kemifos", "Rogor", as well as biological preparations - "Entobakterin", "Lepitotsid". Tinctures of wormwood and tobacco along with autumn digging of the soil are sufficient for small colonies.
processing plums from pests and diseases - Yellow plum sawfly, black plum sawfly. Deals massive damage to plums. The female, laying eggs, eats passages inside the flower, the ovary does not develop and the color falls off, and in the developed ovary, the larvae gnaw through the bones, the fruit falls off. Control measures - until the moment when the plum blossoms, when the buds turn pink, spraying with "Karbofos", "Entobakterin", "Lepitotsid" is effective. Loosening tree trunks and digging the soil reduce the number of dormant larvae. Shaking females onto bedding in the morning (during high humidity) gives a good result.
Plum Pollinated Aphid
Relates to the most malicious pests. During the season, about twelve generations can change, breeding in geometricprogressions. After the plum has blossomed and the ovaries have appeared, the first founding females settle in colonies on the underside of the leaves, begin to feed on the juice, the leaf curls. When asked when to spray a plum from aphids and with what, experienced gardeners give the following recommendations:
- before bud break, if the aphid multiplied in the previous year, after blooming and after flowering;
- immediately immediately after the appearance of the first colonies, then constantly during the period of fruit ripening with a frequency of appearance on the underside of the leaf.
Effective treatments with a soap-ash solution (an infusion of a kilogram of ash and half a bar of laundry soap) before and after bud break. Plum during flowering should not be treated against aphids.
Infusion of marigolds, infusion of orange peel, just a solution of laundry soap bring good results. Perhaps the most exotic is spraying Coca-Cola (one two-liter bottle per bucket of water).
It is desirable to do without pesticides, such as "Akarin" ("Agravertin"), "Aktara", "Aktellik", "Arriva".
Common Plum Codling Moth
Her appetite is amazing: a small caterpillar, laid by a butterfly on the wall of the ovary in the form of an egg, hatches, gnaws the fruit, sits in it, chews and pollutes everything around with excrement, and can grab and touch. The butterfly flies out after the plum blossoms, begins to lay eggs at a temperature of about fifteen degrees. Gum released from fruitsalarm.
Control measures are both folk and chemical. Traps from fermented compote, beer, kvass - at night, butterflies fly to smell, drown in liquid. Smoke with "fragrant" seasonings - rotten straw with potato and tomato tops, bitter wormwood. Two hours - and the butterflies do not want to fly to the plum, which is fumigated. Twice a season, just when the butterflies emerge, is enough to get rid of them.
There are a lot of chemicals: Aktara, Actellik, Sonnet, Bankol, etc. You need to choose the most modern ones and alternate them with folk ones.
Plum diseases
A plum, like a person, diseases are different in nature:
- Viral - smallpox (sharka) with white spots on leaves and fruits (transmitted with seedlings and carried by aphids), ring spotting with whitish blurry spots with a center falling out of them (transmitted with seedlings and inventory). Viruses will not tolerate a rise in temperature, so it is useful for a seedling when it is heated in water to forty-five degrees.
- Bacterial - a witch's broom (a bundle of branches with a fungal coating that has grown at the top, is destroyed only by cutting and burning).
- Non-infectious. The main thing is gum treatment. By releasing juice, the plum heals wounds on the bark after pruning. Infections penetrate through open wounds, they need to be treated with garden pitch, monitored constantly.
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Fungal diseases -clasterosporiasis, curliness, soot fungus, moniliosis (gray rot), plum pockets, coccomycosis, milky sheen, polystigmosis, rust.
plum tree in bloom
Practically all fungal diseases are similar in nature, therefore, the same methods are used to combat them - agrotechnical and fungicide treatment.
Agricultural technology is reduced to ensuring the openness of the crown to the sun's rays and free access to air. Treatment, both preventive and special (in case of illness), with Bordeaux liquid (three times a season - in autumn, spring and after flowering) gives the best results.
