Santa Rosa plum questions

[Vanisle_BC]

A few questions about Santa Rosa plum trees:

My solitary Santa Rosa has given 50lb of fruits in its good years. In bad years it produces few to none. I have only this one plum tree. Recently I heard a garden guru say that plums need two adjacent varieties for pollination. Is this correct, is Santa Rosa an exception or must there be another plum somewhere in my neighbourhood? (I notice that my mason bees ignore the plum blossoms; fly straight through the tree on their way to wherever they go )

The tree has been progressively dying over the past few years, main branch by main branch, but it produces many suckers from the base. It also sends out runners which put up nuisance shoots in various places. A friend suggested slowly pruning the tree down to nothing while encouraging one of the strong basal suckers. Would this be a valid strategy?

I dearly love the flavour of Santa Rosa - a bit like apricot I think - but its runnering habit is a pest. Is this common to all plums or are there less adventurous varieties that taste equally good? And do they need a companion of same or different variety, for good pollination?

[JONA]

Hi Vanisle
Most plums are grafted onto a root stock....more than likely something like Pixie....and its this that is sending out all those shoots.
These would not develope into Santa Rosa plums I'm afraid.
If your tree is producing a good crop then pollination is not the problem. It's far more likely that you are over cropping your tree and throwing into bi- annual production. It's essential that on heavy cropping years that you thin your crop down by removing a load of the plums while they are still at a young stage. ...best to remove those from under branches that are in the shade and thin down heavy clumps to allow the remaining to swell.
Commercial growers would thin large variety plums down to singles to make sure the fruit was as big as possible.
Sorry you are getting dead branches appearing, but I'm afraid that plums do suffer from canker and die back problems. Just continue to keep it pruned as clean as you can.
Good luck.

[Vanisle_BC]

Thanks for the information, John. I don't know what you mean by thinning down to singles? Oh. maybe I get it - no two fruit hanging from the same "node?"

[JONA]

Thanks for the information, John. I don't know what you mean by thinning down to singles? Oh. maybe I get it - no two fruit hanging from the same "node?"

That's it.