Plums (Victoria?) Rotting before ripe

[Farmer_Gyles]

My plum tree is heavily laden with green plums - I think they're victoria plums
Some have been pricked by something and will have maggots in
Instead of ripening normally, they begin shrivelling, developing a purple patch and going mouldy
Pic 1 shows big bunches of plums
Pic 2 shows a small bunch where one is turning reddish as it ripens and another where it's going mouldy
Pic 3 shows a "ripe" one next to a smaller mouldy one

Should I pick all the plums now and ripen them indoors?? Anything else I can do to save the rest of the plums and ensure they ripen?

[rustylady]

It's brown rot Farmer Giles. Brown rot / Royal Horticultural Society

Pick off all the affected ones and put them in the bin. Keep an eye on them and if you spot any further signs of damage pick off immediately.

I don't think you'll be able to ripen indoors - the fruit is nowhere near mature enough yet.

[Farmer_Gyles]

Thanks Rustylady - I didn't think about diseases like that - real shame .....

[rustylady]

Don't despair FarmerGyles, if you're prompt at picking off the damaged fruit you should still get a good harvest.

My Victoria does the same - I keep meaning to thin the fruits early so they get better air circulation but somehow I never get around to it - and I usually get a huge crop.

[hamamelis]

Mine's doing something very similar; I can't get at the plums at the top of the tree- it's a neglected one on a plot I've just taken on, both tangly and tall. How much damage will leaving them do?

I've got the maggots too- is there anything that can be done about those?

[binley100]

Plum sawfly .....you get like a sticky frass on the outside . These tend to ripen/drop early . Clear them up . Think you can get pheremone traps ..
You could try and get the tree back into shape with a good pruning but do it now rather than the winter cos its a stone fruit and can get silver leaf if pruned at the wrong time.....

[hamamelis]

I was told by a friend who's a tree surgeon to leave it 'til next year now, though frankly I'm not sure if it's beyond rescue- it's somewhat impressively tangled, and there's a lot of dead bits...

I hope I get some plums without sawfly larvae in, I've been looking forward to them for ages! (One of the trees is on the plot I've had for a few years, I'm not saying I was looking forward to scrumping!)

[rustylady]

I was told by a friend who's a tree surgeon to leave it 'til next year now, though frankly I'm not sure if it's beyond rescue- it's somewhat impressively tangled, and there's a lot of dead bits...

Your friend may be a tree surgeon, but does he know about fruit trees?

[hamamelis]

I'm pretty sure he knows what he's doing, his plant advice has generally been pretty sound- he claimed it was better to prune in spring than late summer- though he might just have meant he couldn't do it 'til spring, 'cos he's away most of this month, and the end of August is a bit late.

I wasn't all that sober at the time, so maybe I got the details wrong

[FB.]

he claimed it was better to prune in spring than late summer

I'd generally agree with that, although there will always be special exceptions to the general rule.

I've seen some fine mature fruit trees killed by late-summer pruning; late summer pruning is for special situations and when it is done it should only involve the newest shoots and not touch older woody shoots.

But because most people like to "garden" when the weather is nice, a lot of pruning is done at the wrong time.