No matter what rootstock, you'll need to summer prune to maintain a smaller size at 6 feet. Best to pick rootstock that is best adapted to your area, not to control size. Control size by pruning. Pluots grow plenty big on both those rootstocks. I have 3 trees on citation myself and some peach trees on Lovell, and other rootstocks too. Anyways the pluots are as big on citation as my peach trees on the full size Lovell rootstocks. I noticed it dwarfs peaches well, but doesn't seem to dwarf the pluots at all. I'm also not happy with citation on peaches, and will only use other rootstocks from now on. My peaches on citation seem prone to canker, whereas no canker at all on peaches on Lovell. My area though is way different than yours.

You don't need to plant them 25' apart. I'd rather see you plant maybe 3 rows 8 ft by 15 ft. Six ft. is fairly tight. Some pluots like Flavor Grenade grow tall but not wide. Santa Rosa is good plum that will pollinate your pluots and your plums, but it's a little on the tart side. The only drawback to Citation is that it is not drought tolerant, so you need to be able to water it, when there is not sufficient rain. I'd also stay away from Flavor King, as it hard to pollinate.

I prefer 8 foot too myself, mine are 8 feet apart. Ray it's Flavor Supreme that is hard to pollinate. Flavor King is fine, and it is a fantastic fruit! I had a taste this year! I have read a lot of complaints about Citation from all over. I would advise against it.

I've never had a problem with Citation. I've got pluots on both myro and citation and they're all the same size. It might be FS that's hard to pollinate. I don't grow either one, so I can't really say.

drew51 & rayrose,

Let me start by thanking you both for yall's willingness to help out with advice.

drew,

I didn't realize there wasn't much difference in vigor between the two rootstocks on pluots, I think it's going to be Myro 29c for the pluots and Lovell for the peaches & nectarines, all though a few of them are offered on citation only. (I did know there is going to be a lot summer pruning, I think we have canker issues down here also).

We're supposed to have very fertile soil here according to my neighbor, He farms 3500 acres of sugarcane , and is one of the top 10 sugarcane farmers in the state so he must know a little something. So that shouldn't be a problem. That doesn't mean I know what the heck I'm doing though. I just discovered the wonderful world of growing my own fruits this spring.........I've got a lot to learn!!!

rayrose,

The 25' row spacing was a guess, I went measure and their actually 16' apart, and it looks like I can space the trees 7' apart and still get everything to fit. I wish I could do 3 rows instead of 2 , but the way my property is laid out with house & Bodyshop it isn't possible.

I already have a santa rosa, & bruce plum in the first row, and a methley & Burbank plum in the second row. those are spaced roughly between 20'-21' apart. I'm thinking about pulling all of them up except for the santa rosa for pollination. at the time of planting I didn't know pluots existed !!!

Here's my order list for those 2 rows (backyard);

Pluots: 2 Emerald Drop's

2 Flavor Grenade's

2 Flavor King's

2 flavor Finale's

1 Dapple Dandy

1 Splash

1 Flavor Supreme

1 Dapple Supreme

1 Geo Pride

Plums:

1 Burgundy

1 late Santa Rosa

1 Shiro

Pluerry's;

1 candy heart

1 Sweet treat

2 Nadia cherry/plums (Raintree,... ordered today)

........................................................................................................................................................

15 gal. Pots along back porch:

Apriums;

1 cot-n-candy

1 summer delight

Cherries:

1 Craig's crimson (z-dwarf)

1 Stella (z-dwarf)

1 Lapin's (z-dwarf)

1 Minnie Royal (z-dwarf) (raintree,....ordered today)

1 Royal Lee (z-dwarf) (raintree,....ordered today)

........................................................................................................................................................

FRONT YARD:

Peaches:

1 August pride

1 Red baron

1 double jewel

Nectarines:

1 Arctic Glo

1 Arctic Jay

1 Arctic Star

1 Spice Zee Nectaplum

1 Double delight

Called ACN today to order 3 Honey Royale's & 2 Honey Blaze's but they already sold out for 2016. ( I was mad)

Cherries:

1 Lapins (colt)

1 Royal Rainier (colt)

Already planted this spring:

3 different LSU peach varieties & 1 flordaking Peach

All of these will be spread out around my 3 Live Oak trees in my front yard that are several hundred years old.

So............. What do y'all think???? (besides the fact that I'm hooked) lol

You've got some very ambitious plans. IMO, don't get the Flavor Supreme as it is hard to pollinate and you will get minimal, if any fruit. Cherries don't do well in the South and I would scratch them altogether. I hope you understand that you are going to need an ambitious spray program, as everything you're going to grow is very susceptible to Plum Curculio. I'd recommend getting the peaches from Fruit Tree Farm or Vaughns and get them on Guardian rootstock. Both places are much cheaper than Raintree or ACN. I'd also recommend AU Rubrum plum. It's the best plum I grow and a good pollinator.

By the way, is this canker?

rayrose:

well already ordered the Minnie royal & royal lee on z-dwarf today so I'll keep them and scrap the rest of the cherries. I was going to order all the rest from Bay Laurel, But I'll check out the other two nurseries you suggested. I read about AU rubrum before and forgot about it, will have to get one. I'll scrap the flavor supreme also.

The spray program is what I know the least about and is the most important. I don't know what to look for on the trees, or what chemicals to use and when. I've got a lot to learn!!!!!!!

Can the Guardian rootstock handle wet soil?

I don"t think that's canker. it looks more like animal damage. No fruit tree is going to handle wet soil. The roots cannot stay wet or you're wasting your time. Guardian is the best rootstock for peaches. You'll get bigger and faster growing trees and it's resistant to peach tree short life disease. Bay Laurel is the place to buy pluots. It's where I bought mine, except for Spring Satin, which is the only pluot that's bred to grow in the South. FTF sells it along with AU Rubrum, and I'd get it, if I were you. I'd wait and plant all of your trees as dormant whips in January. Bay Laurel and FTF won't ship until then. Let us know what you get and repost in January and I'll help you all I can. BTW, my father was born in Opelousas

I don't know much about Guardian i can't help, but do know it's a good rootstock from all I hear. i would buy it. Good luck! We can go over a spray program I would ask on the site I linked to about Citation, also some more insight into rootstocks there. That could be canker, or it could be a borer, or both. Often borer damage can lead to canker. Any holes where it looks like a borer entered? Dig out the holes, if any with wire, or something to see if you can find a borer. Info on all of this from better experts than me can be found at the other site. Or as Ray says animal damage.

rayrose,

I understand that the fruit trees don't like wet feet, but from what I've read some rootstocks can tolerate wet soils more than others. my property drains off well but we get a lot of rain down here. Thanks for the advice on guardian. I do plan to buy these as bareroot trees to be planted in Jan-Feb. Opelousas is about 90 miles from me, small world.

drew51

There was a couple of holes that I dug out with a paperclip. Once again, thank you both for the help & future help.

it can be wet around here too, as long as the yard drains within a few hours you'll be fine. You could mound the trees. One problem is people plant them too deep! Often this hurts the tree. the flares of the roots need oxygen, need to be exposed, just barely cover roots. If you can mound then up a couple feet or higher, when they settle you will not have a moat around your tree. This is bad. Better to expose roots than bury them deep. You can add more soil to a mound if roots look too shallow. If buried deep the immune system is compromised from low oxygen and borers and fungal infections have an in to your tree. Also try not to amend soil, use native soil if possible. if you need to bring soil in, use low grade cheap top soil, and try to blend it with native soil. Sometimes roots will not leave good soil if amended heavily. This can girdle the roots. i have seen photos of this happening to other users here. They had to move the tree and discovered the girdling from amending soil with compost and such. The tree has to get used to the native soil. the sooner the better.

Drew is right. You don't want to amend the soil at all. The ONLY thing I would add would be a handful of crushed limestone. Citation is very tolerant of wet soil.

What I have learned the past 5 years growing fruit in SE Texas is planting on raised beds is almost mandatory. Even if the water does not flood the area, the saturated soil will still kill the trees. Plums, esp. with myro rootstock, do better than peaches,

Spraying is mandatory. I spray with a dormant spray in the fall after leaf fall and again with dormant oil and copper in Feb before bud break. Brown rot is your worse enemy. I spray with Monterey Fungi-fighter every 21 days. I extend that if we are not getting rain and will spray the day before it rains. I stop spraying about a month before fruits ripens. I feel getting early ripening fruit would help with brown rot since it would have less time to develop.

I have only had to spray for plum curculio once this year. Without anyone else with fruit around me the worm pressure has been low. The fuzzier the peach, the more disease resistance to worms and brown rot. I also tend to go with varieties from LSU and Florida for better disease resistance.

The average life for stone fruits in Texas is said to be 8 to 12 years due to bacteria canker. I do not prune after about July 1st. When the trees are less active they are less able to fight off the canker from a wound. According to Texas A and M you should never prune in the fall. They also say not to prune in the summer but sometimes you have to in order to keep trees smaller.

You have a very nice selection of Plum/Pluot trees selected. Might I suggest adding Satsuma as a plum. And maybe an Aprium like Cot-N-Candy or Leah Cot. I've tried a few different Apriums and I actually enjoy them more than Pluots I think.

Satsuma is a good plum, nice pollinator too!

Gary's advice on spraying is good. I would add an insecticide too. I use Bonide's Tree and Plant Guard. This is a new all in one product. (It has fungicides too). The pesticides in this product were commercial only at one time. Some of the best a homeowner can use. If you want to go organic you will lose some fruit, but can use a spinosad product along with kaolin clay product such as Surround. Still I would use Monterrey Fungi-fighter no matter what. Also Nu Film 17 is a great sticker and a must have to apply these sprays (except oil, no sticker with oils). My spray program is a little different than Gary's. I use sulfur with an all season oil after leaf fall (except on any apricots or pluots, they do not like sulfur, use copper or captan). And in late winter I use copper with a sticker, not oil. For copper Kocide is the very best. Use 1 table spoon per gallon. The liquid coppers sold by Bonide or Monterrey are nowhere near as strong as Kocide. I also spray once or twice with captan. I need it for my strawberries for gray mold, and hit my trees with it too, it prevents some stages of brown rot, scab, and peach leaf curl.

It takes about 5 years for all the pests to discover your orchard. A big mistake is thinking you don't need to spray at first since you have no fruit. You want to start hard and heavy to keep pests from discovering your orchard. Once they do, you will have a harder time battling them.

Some say you should not spray until you know what you're going to have problems with. IMHO this is a mistake. Your local University should have bulletins on what pest pressure to expect and you can base a spray program right after planting on that info.

This thread gives excellent advice to any starting a backyard orchard. Good luck to all. If you look under my name you can see my ideabooks. Look at the stone fruit one to see some of my fruits I produced this year and last.

Are there any self-pollinating pluots?

No

garybeaumont, ray rose & drew51 ;
Thanks you for all the great info, and it all will be put to good use. My plans have changed a bit, I'm going to scrap all the peach & nectarine plans for this coming year , and just deal with the pluots & plums for 2016. I 'll get the peaches & nectarines going the following year. (Don't want to overwhelm myself)
I also went to my local LSUag center (6 miles down the road) and had them email me the commercial peach spray schedule, commercial stone fruit info (insects & diseases) & the homeowner peach and plum spray schedule. (They were out of the printed version).
Once again, THANKS TO ALL

Sweet Dill, I'm late to the party here but you are heading in the right direction by scaling back your plans. I would further scale back on the pluots/pluerries/apriums, I have grown many of them in my climate which is much less hot and humid than yours and can say that most of them are not happy at all, even with a fair amount of spraying. Some do not pollinate, and the ones that pollinate are extremely prone to rot. You will need to do a very large number of sprays to get a decent crop.

Look at the fruit recommendations from your state and nearby ones. Here for example is a sheet from Mississippi.

http://msucares.com/pubs/publications/p0966.pdf

Notice how they recommend against any cherries besides sour ones, disease-resistant plum varieties only, etc. Here is an LSU sheet:

https://www.lsuagcenter.com/NR/rdonlyres/CF2350DE-B6C5-43E8-B1B6-E9D2AA4F54B0/38101/pub1884homeorchardHIGHRES1.pdf

Lastly, you need to seriously look into your chill, as is mentioned in the previous link. A chill map is at

http://www.wpclipart.com/weather/ice_cold/chill_hours_map.png.html

You look to have less than 200 hours of chill if you are in the southeast of Louisiana and most stone fruits will not reliably fruit there. Find the chill of your location, and look up the chill requirement of each variety you want to grow before ordering it. You need fruit needing fewer chill hours than your average number, so lower than 200.

Scott, I scratched the apriums off the list, and I've been warned by quite a few folks about trying to grow pluots down here as well. ( but I'm hard headed) I have a printed copy of the LSU home orchard 2007. I don't mind a heavy spray schedule. And we get way more chill hours than that chart says, we average 500 chill hours. Last year we got 600plus hours. The getchill weather station is 6 miles from my home .
I love plums so I absolutely have to try to grow some pluots too. I planted a Santa Rosa, Bruce, methley & Burbank plum this spring before I learned about pluots, I plan on getting a burgundy , AU rubrum & maybe a satsuma plum. Going to get some pluots , some will go in the ground, and some in 15 gallon pots on my back porch. I thank you for your thoughts, respect your knowledge , as I read a lot your post & comments all the time. But I must try. I don't mind failing, but not knowing would be worse! Thanks again Scott!

Wow, that's a reality check! Good info Scott! I tend to forget about chill hours, as it is not a concern here, well low chill fruit sometimes does poorly here, but not always many exceptions. Even though we have some humidity here, pluots do fine with a minimum of spraying. Some are grown here commercially. We just get slightly more rain than Texas. The Midwest for the most part is dry. MN is super dry! All gardening is local and I tend to forget that!

Here is a good source to look at for chill. Many you already chosen, good job!

http://www.davewilson.com:8080/product-information/quick-screen/low-chill-fruit-varieties

Remember too the chill hours are conservative, many rated for 300 might work. You could try figs too, you might want to consider them.

I grow a few low chill plants like the Spice Zee Nectaplum, and it so far has not bloomed early, it has bloomed at the same time my high chill hour fruits have. I'm lucky here in that sense is everything will grow here for the most part.

As far as you trying hard to grow fruit. This is my advice. Pick a core of fruit you know will grow well in your area. Start with that. Next add fruits that should grow well in your area, but are unproven. Lastly add experimental fruits. This way you will always have some fruit. This has worked well for me.

I average 500-600 chill hours.

Another plum you might consider is Gulf Rose. It has had some good reviews as far as taste, but would also need another Gulf series plum such as Gulf Beauty. The other Gulf series have had mixed reviews on taste. I have a Gulf Beauty and the skin is pretty tart. I am going to plant a Gulf Rose this year and see if it is better. A spring satin plumcot is another one I am going to try. It was developed by Georgia.

Your chill hours are high, awesome! Keep us updated on how it goes.

SweetDill,

Pluots , plums, peaches, and nectarines will do fine where you are. I know a lady in La, that grows pluots very successfully, with a minimal spray program and I do the same in SC. Your main problem is deciding what your taste is in fruit. The worse mistake you can make is spending years growing a variety that turns into a fruit that you can't stand to eat. So spend the majority of your time in making the right decisions as to what varieties you are going to like to eat

You can top work fruit trees you don't like, so if something turns out bad, you can still change cultivars rather quickly. Although as Ray says best to avoid from the start! Hard to tell sometimes what you like. It's hard to find good fruit to sample. And what some users like fruitnut do not like, I do, one he didn't like Arctic Glo, it was too tart for him. Well for me it was amazing and very sweet. Taste is so subjective, so even doing research can result in bad choices. As tastes vary so much.

Rayrose , drew51 , Scott F Smith, garybeaumont,
Could Y'all please "follow" me so I can message Y'all.
Thanks Tim

Well I pulled the trigger on the following from BLN today. PLUOTS: 2 Emerald drops, 2 flavor grenades, 2 flavor kings,1 dapple dandy, 1 splash, 1 geo pride, 1 flavor finale, 1 flavor supreme, 1 dapple supreme, 1 flavor queen. PLUMS: 1 Burgundy, 1 Shiro. Nectarines: 1 Honey Kist, 1 Arctic glo, 1 Arctic star, 1 SpiceZee nectaplum. PEACHES: 1 August pride. Wanted to do a "bulk buy" but would have been too much to line up with so little time.

Yeah I couldn't help you much with the bulk buy anyway!

You must have a rich uncle and a lot of laborers.

Rayrose;
I wish!!!!! But I can borrow my neighbors backhoe to dig all those holes!

Rayrose;
You said you know a lady in La. that grows pluots. Is she on here? I'd like to read some of her post if she is.

Drew;
You said I could top work a tree if I don't like it. Thanks for the vote of confidence! But at this point in the game I'm doing good to put them in the ground without killing them!!!! But I'm a quick learner. I do plan on learning how to graft though. Lol

No she isn't. She doesn't even own a computer.

Rayrose,
Ok thanks. What pluots are working for you in SC? I still need to order a AU rubrum & and a spring satin, called fruit tree farms but they're out of everything. Will call elsewhere.

I have Flavor Grenade, Flavor Queen, Flavor Rich and Spring Satin. It isn't the fact that they're working for me, it's because I chose them over the others. I don't like tart fruit. I do have Santa Rosa, which is tart, but I only have it as a pollinator for everything else. You might try Vaughn's. I'm surprised FTF is sold out so early.

I think FTF had some problems where they lost trees or rootstocks. I myself love tart!! Yum! I have a weeping Santa Rosa, for the fruit and the looks.

I have never ordered from them but Isons Nursery has both the AU Rubrum and the Spring Satin.

Ray,
I'm not much on tart fruit either, but I'll eat them. I did plant a Santa Rosa this spring. I rather super sweet fruit. FTF told I should have ordered in June or July. All I could think was WOW.
Do you have any problems with your pluots cracking?

Drew,
I like the way the weeping Santa Rosa looks, might have to get one for the front yard. I could give all the Santa Rosa's to my friends to keep them out of my pluots! Lol

Gary,
I did see them at Isons, will give them a call in the morning.

Some pluots are tart like Flavor Fusion, and Flavor King is just different. I used Weeping Santa Rosa in my front yard. Many around here use flowering weeping cherry trees. I wanted something productive. Scott reports it is a shy producer but the fruit is slightly better than Santa Rosa.

SweetDill, you want to keep your Santa Rosa near where your pluots and plums are planted. If they are in the back, and your pluots are in the front, it won't do you much good. Personally, I would not get both. You aren't planting these as ornamental specimens, but for fruit production. You have to understand that Scott is in Maryland and Drew is in Michigan you and they will get totally different results and have totally different experiences.This is my SR from two years ago.

Well Houz wouldn't let me load the photo, so THANK YOU HOUZ!!

I've never bought from Ison's, but I've always gotten quality trees and good prices from Vaughn's

Ray, my Santa Rosa that I planted this spring is in my backyard where all the pluots will be. The pluots will basically surround it, I also have a Methley, Bruce & Burbank that were planted this spring as well. Plus the AU Rubrum that will be added, (all in the backyard). Might be able to place the weeping Santa Rosa in the backyard as well. So I'm hoping that there's no pollenation problem.
Oh yeah, a burgundy plum as well.

I have 4 pluots that will pollinate each other, all are known pollinators to each other. My Weeping Santa Rosa is in the front along with Satsuma, and Nadia, I need the plums for each other in the front. So agree with Ray although I'm sure the bees will find them all. I have an Indian Free peach which is one of only a few peaches which is not self fertile. It had the most fruit of any of my peach trees. so pollination of my peaches is working well. Some if not most pollination can be by wind so Ray has a very solid point about location.

All the pluots I chose should pollinate each other according to DWN. I also have 2 Nadia's ordered from raintree.(can't wait to see how they taste)
Drew, what's your opinion of Indian free peach ? I almost ordered one. This morning I dropped off 3 soil samples at the LSUag center. 1 for the plums/pluots (backyard),1 for the peaches (front yard) & 1 out of my blueberry bed. Curious to see the results.

Hey I have 8 blueberry plants too. I love Indian Free, but it does have a tart or acid flavor. So it might not be for you. You have Arctic Glo which does have some acid too, but it high in sugar too and better than Indian Free IMHO. It is similar to Indian Free but sweeter, at least grown here.

If you like sweet the Honey series from DWN is amazing. Although the
best ones are commercial only. The bests ones IMHO are Honey Royale,
and Honey Fire or Honey Lite (not both, taste similar and are a week apart in ripening). The white nectarines are sweet too, but I don't know much about them. They are traditionally the low acid types with Arctic Glo being the exception.

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).

More pics.