Steve, the only thing to worry about with ants is if you get aphids. They move the aphids around and make the infestation much worse. I usually just control the aphids with soap or oil and don't go after the ants. But on my cherries there is a leaf curling aphid hard to spray so I put tanglefoot on the trunk and that eliminates the ants which eliminates the aphids. You can also do that trick on plums. In fact I may try it this year since I get some horrible green aphids on my plums every year. Re: spraying, once you get fruit you need to spray. I use Surround for the curculio and spinosad on the moths. For brown rot I use Monterey Garden Fungi Fighter (propiconazole) along with sulphur and Serenade. MFF does a very good job but its good to mix it up with other sprays or you may develop a resistant strain. Scott

Brown Rot is controlled by Monterey Fungi Fighter. Need about 3 sprays stopping like 2-3 weeks before harvest, I believe. Harvestman has some excellent posts here about this topic. Google this site.

I live in Southwest Louisiana with conditions similar to yours.I have a single 4 variety pluot tree on Citation rootstock. It is 3 years old and already producing. First, the flavor grenade shoot is weak and only about 12 inches long and seems to refuse to grow.In spite of this it still produced 5 or 6 pluots beginning from year two and this past season. These were of very good quality with no problems with splitting. The remainder of the tree is growing extremely well. Of the 3 varieties,Splash is the heaviest producer to the point of my having to support the limbs. I had a slight problem with brown rot on some of them because I didn't quite spray at the right time and we also had an unusually wet spring. Geo produced quite a few beautiful fruits,but they split both last year and this year,so I didn't get many. The final variety is Emerald Drop. It produced a few this year for the first time. These were very sweet and did not seem to have any problems with splitting or rot. I think it will do fine. I know that this isn't a long term trial, but I think that Splash and Emerald Drop may well produce for you,as well as Flavor Grenade,if you remember to spray them.

I don't mind tart or acidic as long as the sugar's there too. I have a dozen BB's planted in different spots in the yard before I learned that they need acidic soil. So I made a 8'x20' raised bed with RxR cross ties. (Pics)Then I put two backhoe buckets of native soil , 20 1 cu. ft. bags of compost & manure, soil sulfur, aluminum sulfate, & 8-24-24 fertilizer. Tilled it real good, it's been setting for 2 months now and waiting on the dormant season to transplant depending on the soil sample results. Also some pics of the backyard where the plums are, and the new plums & pluots are going. The front yard where the LSU peaches are (not too many leaves on them).