Are you looking for disease resistance or over-all pest resistance? I doubt there's any plum that you'd enjoy eating that PC and OFM wouldn't.

Both of these pests will almost certainly require multiple aps to get plums where you are.

Obviously, the earlier the plum ripens the fewer aps, but that is about all you can follow if looking for less spraying. I don't know about rot and knot issues where you are but brown rot will also likely be a problem with just about any worthwhile plum- but if you're spraying for OFM anyway, this shouldn't require any additional spray, just some Monterey Fungus Fighter in your mix.

Thanks.

Yeah, I really meant overall low maintenance.

There should be all manner of problems and pests here, and nevertheless there will be pressure to keep it unsprayed (at least near the fruiting season). (I am asking the questions for others.)

Despite the many real problems, I occasionally see selected plums in yards that I know get no care. I just don't know what kind they are, nor do the owners.

Had Roadside, Amber, Rubrum - but they all came from the infamous nursery at TyTy - so they may have been nothing but random seedlings; looking back, I don't know that I ever saw anything that resembled a graft/bud union on 'em. Never got any fruit from any of them, and they're all gone now except for Rubrum - and it's a huge mass of black knot.
The only plum that's been worth the space it's occupied here has been P.angustifolia 'Guthrie'. I believe it was selected in FL (my scions came from a friend there), so should handle anything your climate can throw at it. Nice, pingpong ball-size fruits.

I have rubrum, roadside and producer, and have had good
production, and health, with no spraying. I've also tried
rosa, but could never get it established in my yard. These
have been no brainer trouble free trees for me.

I'm down near Montgomery AL and I grow AU-Rubrum, AU-Producer, Methley, Santa Rosa and Satsuma plum trees and haven't had any issues with any of them so far. Sure, there will be a little insect damage on some of the plums, but not enough to worry about spraying for.

Thanks all. This is just the type of information I am looking for.

Wow, can't believe you southern growers can get good plums without any spray. What are your plum curculios up to?. Maybe it's because you're in a suburbia of lawns and you've not been discovered yet.

I can't get any plums without spraying in Maryland. But, besides the curculio a well-adapted plum is a very easy fruit to grow. Peaches used to be my #1 favorite crop but I think plums are going to pass them up at the rate they have been going. This is Jap types, not Euros, all the Euros get too much rot.

Scott

"Maybe it's because you're in a suburbia of lawns and you've not been discovered yet."

That has crossed my mind too.

Just for the record, I spray Imidan once on my peaches at petal fall (early April) when the first wave of PC shows up. Now, my peach orchard just happens to be about 60 feet from my plum trees. Maybe I kill a majority of the PC then before they decide to move on over to the plums and plumcots. In any event, no insecticides are directly sprayed on my plums.

YES. I grow gulf blaze and gulf rose. Both are superb plums and with ruthless
thinning will produce large crops of 2 to 2 1/2" plums. I would just grow rose
left to be but it needs a pollinator. Both are sweet skin and pit, no classic
bitter to the gorgeous dark red.
Bag all fruits with lightest possible row cover 6x12" stapled to form a bag and
then paper clipped on. This takes care of birds and insect pests. I have no
problem at all over 15 years of plums with brown rot, some on peaches but
bagging again keeps to one fruit at a time. You can spray plant guardian
in a mixture of 1 cup molasses in 1 gal water to almost eliminate brown rot
and most stays on the bag. Train your trees low in a spiral pattern 3 main
scaffold branches and keep the interior clean. Check every 2 weeks and
just nip off tiny shoots and you will not need to prune except as directed
in spring after the very necessary dormant oil and other dormant sprays per
your locale. You will be happy with these trees and the flavor is great.

I got the assortment package from Stark Brothers with the Starking delicious plum and spring satin plumcot easy to grow and with excellent flavor/sweetness while the harglow apricot and the aprium were just OK. I have a methley plum which grows like a weed and produces plums without much trouble, but i don't really care for their taste/texture, but keep the tree for pollinating others.

Garedneck, do you adequately thin the Methely? Here I find it plenty good for such an early barer, but it must be ferociously thinned as it forms fruit in clusters like grapes and doesn't get much bigger if you don't reduce them to 4" spacing. The larger plums have better flavor and texture- probably because of flesh to skin ratio being increased but also more leaves serving individual fruit.