That looks like the one I had but lost tree due to Moose.

Yes, I was looking for information on the Brookgold the write up I found called the skin tender, I would not agree with that. I found the skin a little tough.

Her tree is about 20 feet tall and yet only got about 2 gallons of fruit. It used to get more but they hired in a landscaper a couple of years back and now the tree gets fewer fruit and last year none at all. I was wondering if somehow a needed pollinator was removed when they took out some of the existing bushes.

It is a fairly good plum, and if I could get a good crop I would be inclined to keep it as it is very hardy for this zone which is sometimes hard to achieve with plums.

I can not wait for taste mine

It's been so long ago when I tasted mine that I forgot...as in picture, it looks like it's semi freestone...correct? Apparently not many Brook gold's are sold as gold anymore, most are red.

Sorry for the late response, it is haying season and I got myself a little milk cow so I am busy, busy busy.

Brookgold is semi freestone, I wish the fruit was a little larger but it is sweet. I just met another fruit enthusiast in the area who, in the past, helped at the U of S, he has a seedling of Brookgold that was given to him years ago. He says has wonderful fruit but I have found that taste is subjective. Still, I am going to get a scion next spring and see how it develops. Unfortunately he ate all his before we met.

Can you leave a few on the tree for a bit longer to see if they turn red ?

The ones I have are already done but all turned red about two weeks ago. These are the bylands brookgold. My bet is bylands mixed it up years ago in the nursery and has been selling a red Japanese plum as a brookgold for the last ten years lol. Doesn’t bother me much as the quality of my plums is very good and it fruits very easily unlike the brookred.

matt, They don't turn red at all. They do turn brown if they stay on the tree too long.

Unfortunately my niece has the "Brookgold curse" her first plum was ripe on her new tree this fall and she sent me a picture of a red plum. Her tree, as well as my own, came from Boughen in Nipawin Sk.

My red plums are tiny and sour, not a good plum at all.

Here are some of the plums I harvested from a tree that was sold to me as "Brookgold" ... I think it's really Brookred.

@Douglas Forbes: I think you're right. After a lengthy discussion with my local tree nursery, the Brookred came up in conversation--they have that dark red color.

Funny, I was just in Edmonton last month and after eating some delicious fresh plums, I ended up purchasing & planting a Pembina (larger fruit with d.red skin/yellow flesh) and a Tucumseh plum (sp?) for our acreage. Hoping that it won't take too many years for it to produce fruit!

The mixed up brookgold that turns red is from bylands and is a pure hardy Japanese plum. I have brook red and a brook gold that turns red and they are completely different looking buds leafs and fruit quality and bloom time is later on the hybrid brook red.

Brookred likely has sterile pollen and doesn’t pollinate well at all I would not recommend purchasing any brookred trees as they are not productive at all while the mixed up brookgold that turns red is a prolific producer .

Bylands nurseries is very close to Summerland research facility and they have had ptitsen 9 selling It For many years. It’s very likely that bylands mixed up with either beauty or ptitsen and has been shipping the wrong trees out to all the prairie provinces For years.

If if somebody has some of the true brookgold trees i will pay for scions As I am trying to grow my pure Japanese plum collection.

I did start two of my own trees but they are not at scion taking stage yet. I will ask this week if she will let me cut a few scions if you like.

Thanks for the info.

That would be amazing ubro

Matt, can you pm me, I can get 2 scions.

I sent you an email yesterday

Well I now have this Brookgold growing on my brook gold lol. Did some grafts a few weeks ago and they are pushing flowers out and green tips

thanks ubro

Just to keep this thread alive ......

Its definitely been determined brook gold is a yellow plum not very productive from what I’ve heard on this thread so far.

brookred is a hybrid plum I have and doenst produce much fruit ever. The fruit is garbage quality and rots early on the tree.

The red brookgold is not a brookred plum i can assure all of you. What I have is a highly productive red pure Japanese plum. bylands sells u of sask material and summer land material. Summerland has beauty plum which looks exactly like this plum and is pure jap plum but is Only zone 4 hardy .They also have ptitsen 9 plum which is a red Japanese plum .

u of sask has ptisten 3 which looks exactly like my plums off my brookgold.

my thoughts now are beauty plum would not survive in colder than Calgary climates and not produce so reliable for me if it was beauty . Which leads me to believe this is mislabeled from u of sask ptitsen series probably 3. My tree is ultra hardy and super productive and I’ll repeat is not a hybrid plum .

The skin on this fruit is really thin like a typical Japanese plum no sour taste either, but is a bit crunchy if picked right.

super sweet tasting cling stone taste is 9/10 and easily beats any bc okanagan plum from a fruit stand.

keeps about 1 week after picking but if picked early can last 2 weeks. Never had a bit of die back this is easily my best plum.

Matt, I am jealous that your "not a brookgold" provides tasty plums. Mine does not provide anything palatable. But I am a sucker for punishment I have ordered a brookgold from DNA gardens for this spring. I had a Beauty Japanese plum and it is not hardy to zone 4. Most places list it as a zone 5. Mine grew back from the snow line 3 years in a row. The fourth year I didn't wait to see, it got replaced .

Let’s see your ”non-palatable” red brook gold fruit. Any photos of the buds on a branch , Or of the fruit ? It sounds like you have a real brookred plum.

DNA gardens is highly reputable so not sure what you mean about “ sucker for punishment” and chinook you’ve not made any posts on here before wondering where you live .

Agree...the real Brook Gold and Red were never productive when hearing from people who had them..it was certainly the same with mine. But, it could also be that we've never had the right pollinator. Ubro, you might be right..it could be the landscapers took out the pollinator, perhaps I know where, the plum maybe pushed some wild suckers which done the job...never get a landscaper because they're not fruit experts lol. Moose took both out mine out years ago, think I liked the gold one better. Think I could be ready to try another Brook gold lol.

Matt, where to start. I have been here at least 4 years. I believe I coined the term "Not a Brookgold" still used by some, but it appears most here now call it "Red Brookgold". It was only a year ago I thought you loved me:

Chinook(4a)

11 months ago

Konrad, Matt and our other Alberta plum growers. I am with you and planting more European plums and removing asians and hybrids that produce little and/or dieback. What are your experiences with black knot? This winter I chopped to the ground an old declining mayday that had black knot. In the Lethbridge river valley about 10 miles away the choke cherries are endemic with black knot. Are my european plums at risk?

Matt, the Opal plum I planted a year ago appears to have come through winter in good shape.

• 
  mattpf (zone4)
  11 months agoEuropean plums for me are resistant So far. My experience they are most disease resistant plum or apricot you can grow in southern alberta. nice to know another plum grower in southern Alberta not many of us .
  

I browse this site most times because too often it is such a hassle to get logged in. Last spring I did compose a long winded report of what had died over winter with a picture of my dead NY9 plum asking the forums thoughts on why. Houzz just spun for an hour and nothing happened. So my post never appeared and I surrendered - call me weak if you must.;

If I could post a picture of my Not a Brookgold you wouldn't see much. A couple springs ago I tried to topwork it. All of the scions you sent me were dead.

Well it was my first try at grafting so maybe it was me. But you have my mailing address.

Now it is a single nurse branch with a lot of vertical sprouts. If the trunk and roots weren't so big I think I would dig it out and put something else there.

I definitely was not trying to disparage DNA gardens. I specifically chose them because they graft in house and I thought that was my best way to avoid the Bylands Not a Brookgold. My middle child also had two volleyball tournaments in Edmonton in May so it was on my way. I would love to see their setup. Volleyball is now cancelled. It's going to be a long deadhead to pick up those trees.

Black knot we have here seem to be of different strain than what they have down east..so be aware of what you're bring in, hardy nursery in Quebec stopped growing European, except one I believe. What scion's didn't take for you from Matt? These new water sprouts after cutting back make perfect grafting stock, [whip&tongue]. What does DNA graft? She does or used to bud allot of Beedle pears for other nurseries.

I hear you about bringing trees in from out east. But as you know there are not many options for diverse plum varieties in Alberta. I keep trying new ones to see if there is something that will prosper in my environment. Marco at Nut Cracker also struggles with Black Knot in European plums. I'm on the western edge of the Palliser Triangle so I hope our arid conditions will protect me from the black knot. I was unable to get any to take. Black ice, Yakima, Burbank, Translucent gage, blue free, peach plum. I think I paid for 10 scions and he must have sent me 25. From that point of view it was hard to complain. My own scions of Toka also didn't take. This was the spring after we had experienced multiple -38 degree days in the preceeding winter. My Toka had significant dieback, so in hindsight no surprise the scions were no good. I am not yet ready to try more grafting. Maybe next year. Graft or bud? I guess what's important to me is either the scion or the bud comes from a Brookgold that bears yellow plums. This from the DNA website:

" We do our own grafting, which allows us the ability to carry the newest and greatest types of fruit. We may not carry everything, but we do carry quality"

Black ice and Burbank will be a waste of your time I’ve tried both and they died off. Burbank won’t survive first winter for me. Black ice was grafted onto mustangs roots so wasn’t a fair opportunity for me. They lasted 3 years fruited once really nice but declined fast after. Yakima produced fruit for me last year along with translucent gage .Both are borderline in calgary probably will not grow up north of us. translucent gage is very nice quality. Yakima made large good tasting fruit also. I have tons of both in my yard grafted all over.

Online shopping is sooo easy, but you don't always get the full story. So, I talked to DNA gardens in person today, inquiring about my order. It turns out the Brookgold they sell is not grafted in house. They also didn't have the size I paid for and wanted to upsize me with me paying the difference. So I kindly declined the Brookgold. The Lee Red on my order is grafted in house as well as the Alberta Buff Apple. So I still have a long drive and no true Brookgold.

@mattpf (zone4) If you got your BlackIce from the same nursery I did, it is not a BlackIce... And not very cold hardy. I think I will topgraft mine with Purple Heart. Here is a picture of my "BlackIce" fruit, looks like yours?:

I live close to Claresholm, in S. Alberta and have a Brookgold plum - fruit is VERY sweet, juicy and delicious with tender skin; I water it a lot. The only thing equal to it is the Italian prune plum, tree- ripened, which I can't grow here. My Brookgold doesn't bear much fruit. I have the best pollinators. Discovered problem - wind comes through here at a certain time and blows the flowers off before they're polinated. Sometimes, there's a late mild frost, killing embryos. Later, we get hail. Some years, I get no fruit at all - its hit and miss so, mostly, its the weather.

HU, wasn't that wind something through June this year, even for those of us who are used to it. Days from the SW and then days from the NW, even had a few from the NE. Plums are weak and many fell to the ground. How many brookgold plums do you have this year? Are they ripe now? Would you entertain a scavenger? Who are you stealing tree ripened Italian plums from? I planted an Italian this spring, hoping I have enough heat units.

Prune plums aren't hardy for this area - Z4a. I get those from the Okanagan fruit truck. There's a a hardy blue plum - " Mount Royal" , I've wanted to try. Maybe you got that. I'm ready to shovel my Toka plum - 11 years and it's never fruited, also gets winter die back on some branches despite the protection of the orchard. Blooms too late. I've only got 2 plums on my Brookgold this year - heheh - but have waited 3 years since last fruit . That time, it filled a large bread bowl. Not heavy producers but only wanted them for fresh eating . They're still green at the moment- (Aug 17) when they turn gold, they ready. I'm pleased with the taste of my Prunus Nigra plums - again, they bloom early so fruit is weather dependant.

Popping in here as there seem to be many plum growers following, has anyone had a ’gold star’ plum bear fruit? i bought onefrom whiffletree nursery 8 years ago, had understood it to be self fertile, but I think I must be wrong. Last year was the first and only year a few fruit set, but it all dropped off very early.

I want to get a second tree to cross pollinate, but unsure what is needed. Whiffletree doesn’t sell ‘gold star’ anymore, and i can’t remember if it’s a hyrbid american or european variety. Hoping someone here is growing it succesfully and can weigh in! thanks!