Growing and Cultivation of Plums in Florida

Transcription

1 Growing and Cultivation of Plums in Florida H, H. Simmons, Jacksonville. It seems entirely unnecessary for me to comment on the necessity of fruit on the farm. From the standpoint of health, as well as from the standpoint of dollars and cents, there is no other crop that means so much to the farm as the fruit crop. In fact any farmer who fails to de vote a reasonable portion of his farm to the growing of at least an adequate sup ply for home use, is no longer to be con sidered an up-to-date farmer. Florida has long been noted for its citrus fruits. Throughout the civilized world the mere, mention of its name brings to mind her beautiful orange and grapefruit groves, but very few people realize that our cli mate and soils are equally as well adapted to innumerable varieties of deciduous fruits, among which is the plum, the sub ject upon which I have the honor of speaking to you about today. Oakhurst is located three miles north west from the city limits of Jacksonville.. The soil is chiefly Norfolk fine sand and blackjack ridge type and is not generally considered by agriculturist as being as well adapted to the growing of ordinary field crops and raising of livestock as the heavier types of soil. However, Oak hurst is said by our county agent to be one of the best demonstration farms in Duval county. Besides our hog and hom iny phase of farming, we have specialized in pecans and plums. By actual experi ence I have; found plums and pecans tobe one of the most profitable combina tion for north Florida soils, but as I have been asked to speak on the merits of the former I will proceed to give you my opinion and experience with plums. There are three variety groups, which consists of the European, the Japanese, and the native, which altogether com prises a dozen or more varieties in the three groups. There may be other vari eties just as well adapted to our soil con ditions, but as our experience has been with the Excelsior we can only speak au thoritatively of this particular variety. It is self-fertile, that is to say, the bloom of this variety of plums are capable of self pollenization and does not require the interplanting of other varieties to cause the setting of fruit. The Excelsior is a me dium large red plum when ripe and is very juicy, and in flavor it cannot be ex celled. Most of the European varieties includ ing the much famed Damson, thrive best on heavy clay soil, but with the Excelsior the exact opposite is true. It is at home on the well drained high light sandy soils. We know of no crop that will pay greater dividends on the blackjack ridge soils, of Florida than the Excelsior plum. With, this variety we have found that twenty feet apart is the proper distance for set ting. 187

2 i88 FLORIDA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY The tre.es may be set either in the fall or spring, perhaps the very best time for setting in north Florida would be some time between November 15th and Febru ary 1st. The strong one. to two-year-old grafts should be used, and purchased from nearby reliable nurserymen. In set ting our plums all broken and injured roots were trimmed off with a sharp knife cutting with a slant from the un der side. The top should be pruned to a straight whip two or three feet high, with all branches removed. The tree should stand a little deeper when set than it stood in the nursery, the same as ad vised for practically all other fruit trees. About four or five branches should be allowed to form the framework of the top, the operator keeping in mind the proper balance of the. fruit limbs. The head should, of course, be started as low as possible. The first year's growth of the four or five branches should be short ened in to within about twelve or eighteen inches of the trunk; on each of these pri mary branches about two secondarybranches should be allowed to develop. All subsequent pruning, if any be re quired, should be with the view of keep ing an open center to admit of as much air and sunshine as possible. All inside suckers should be pruned out. With the proper care a plum orchard should begin to bear the second year and the third year a moderate crop may be expected. An orchard of any kind is something that requires attention and the plum is no exception to the rule. No one would think of planting a citrus grove without giving considerable attention in the way of cultivation, fertilization, pruning, spraying, etc. The plum, while not sub ject to near so many diseases and insect enemies as the citrus fruits, is susceptible to certain injury from a few of these causes and if let go unaided will finally succumb to their attacks. First of all the plum orchard should be set on elevated places preferably on a northern slope. After the proper ground is selected the next thing is to see that the trees are properly set. It is not enough to dig a hole, and cram the roots in and throw in a few shovels full of dirt and step on it, that is not our way of planting. After due allowance has been made for the tree to stand a little deeper than it stood in the nursery, the roots should be spread out in their natural position before the dirt is shoveled in, using the top soil and carefully packing the soil about the roots as the hole is being filled. One cannot be too careful in setting the tree. Plum orchards require about the same methods of cultivation as any of the or dinary fruits, such as peaches, etc. In our case we have practiced the growing of oats and rye as a winter cover in our plum orchard and follow these with cowpeas in the summer and fall. With the exception of danger of introducing root knot through the cowpeas, we believe this is the best system of inter-cropping the plum orchard. Root knot is one of the plum's greatest enemies, as this disease. is more to be dreaded on the light sandy soils. It is rather risky to plant any other varieties of cowpeas in the plum or chard except the Iron or the Brabham. In regard to fertilization we have found that a moderate application of any good complete mixture applied to the soil prior to putting in the oats and rye with one or two top dressings of nitrate

3 FLORIDA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY of soda around each tree before the plums are half grown is about all that is needed. In the absence of these cover crops and the commercial fertilizer, a moderate ap plication of barn yard manure supple mented with wood ashes will be found to meet the demands of the plum on soils of medium fertility. The Excelsior plum is a very prolific bearer and over bearing is frequently a fault with them. Much larger fruit will be obtained and there will be less likeli hood of rot if the fruit is thinned. For the sake of the vigor of the trees, and also for the production of regular crops, thinning should be practiced. Early thin ning is best, but late thinning is better than none at all. In marketing plums and for jelly making, they should be picked as soon as they show any tendency to soften. The Excelsior will bear early picking and will ripen up well in the fruit packages. For home canning they should be gather ed in the. first stage of ripening. My knowledge of plum culture has been acquired from actual experience in my own grove at Oakhurst Farms. The entire planting of this grove contains about 10 acres. The first planting was of three varieties: The Florida Queen, Golden Beauty and the Excelsior. On five acres of this planting I used ioo each of the three named varieties. There was such a marked difference in the growth and development of the three varieties that I used exclusively the Excelsior for planting the remaining 5 acres of the grove. The Excelsior trees bore a satis factory crop the second year out and con tinued to bear heavy crops for about 7 years before they showed any sign of decline. Will say, however, that the trees plant ed on high sandy soil show a very much better growth and better fruiting quality than those planted in flat pine woods land. The planting has been a clear dem onstration that our blackjack ridge land is the ideal soil for plum growing. The first planting of the grove is now 14 years old, and the. trees on the blackjack land are still vigorous with an abundant crop of fruit this year, while the trees on the flat woods land are practically all dead. There has never been a year in the life of the grove, that the trees on the flat woods ground has given a full crop of fruit in comparison with the trees on the higher soil. I have found the Excelsior to be very hearty and its resisting power to the San Jose, scale most wonderful. We have used the Lime Sulphur spray once a year when the trees were dormant. We have gen erally sprayed the trees twice per annum for the control of the Curculio one of these sprayings being applied immediately after the shedding of the bloom and the second spraying about the time the fruit is of buck shot or velvet bean size. This grove has been used as a pig pas ture and set alternately with pecan tree.s. As the pecan trees are now demanding all of the ground we are gradually taking out the plum trees leaving only those tiees farthest from the pecan trees. We have been breaking the ground along in October each year, harrowing it down and seeding it to oats or rye for winter pasture. The ground again is plowed the latter portion of June or around the first of July and sowed with peas. These have been used as pastures

4 190 FLORIDA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY with the exception of a few years when the pea vines were cut and used for hay. The larger portion of the orchard is now pretty well checked with Bermuda grass. However, I have been unable to detect any injury by the Bermuda grass to the plum trees. We have marketed the crops of this grove in the local markets of Jacksonville. The price up to 1916 has averaged $1.75 per bushel crated, using a standard straw berry crate, and baskets for packing. The 1916 crop was a very large one and as there was a very large peach crop that year we found poor demand in the local market. I put about 1,000 crates of fruit in cold storage. The; fruit was picked just about the time it began to color, carefully selected and packed, this fruit remained in cold storage until the latter portion of September or the first of October. The temperature was kept at about 45 degrees above freezing, and wie found the fruit kept in perfect condition. We had a con tract with retail merchants and delivered the fruit three times a week at a price of $2.75 per crate. The fruit would stand up about 48 hours, the color was beau tiful and the flavor was as fine as I have' ever tasted. The year of 1916 was the zenith of my grove's production and this was the only experience I have had in the cold storage of plums. In 1917 we had a large quantity of ripe fruit canned by the Canning Club of Duval county. We sold some of the cantied fruit, but kept a large quantity of it for our own use. Canned plums used for pie comes nearer being a substitute for Cherry pie than anything that I have ever tasted, and it has been enjoyed immense ly by my family. Now as to the two first mentioned varieties, will say that my reason for dis carding them was that they seemed to be susceptable to a small bug or a kind of louse; that attack the trees in large quan tities, and I could not get the trees to hold their fruit after the fourth year. I had, the trees all dug up and discarded as I was afraid the insects attacking them might spread to the Excelsior plums. Mr. Brokaw: I may have overlooked it and Mr. Simmons may have read it, but what stock do you use? Mr. Simmons: I purchased the trees for this grove from the Turkey Creek Nurseries and understood that the roots were of the native plum stock. Mr. Brokaw: You never examined them? Mr. Simmons: I am sure they were of the native plum stock. Probably a hog plum, wild or sour, probably it would stand a temperature of 45 degrees above zero. Mr. Brokaw: The year after the freeze, I know there was a very fine crop of Kelsey plums in this county. We had a great many bushels of Kelsey plums and I went out and bought the stock from a negro who used to work for us, but if there were 14 bushels of Kelsey plums on one tree 25 and 28 years ago, it was doing very fine in this country, and I would like to know whether or not the Kelsey is succeeding in this section. It is not doing well in Orange county. Mr. Hume: You know I believe there are some soils in Marion county that will grow anything; perhaps you can't dupli cate those soils in Orange county.

5 FLORIDA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY Mr. Simmons: I have tried using a few plums in my garden with very poor success, apparently none, but the Kelsey seems just as hardy and just as much at home in our dry sandy soil as the sour, wild or hog plum we know so well and I cannot understand why we haven't culti vated the plum to a larger extent. The products of the plum are very good in deed. It makes the most wonderful conserves, the most palatable and de licious preserves you have ever eaten, and I was very much interested last night in the gentleman's paper on the Scuppernong grape. Why, I have know the Scuppernong grape all my life. These fruits that we have around us in abun dance are so terribly neglected and I hope today we will get away from the one. crop proposition and use these fruits that grow so easily, the Scuppernong and the plum.