How To Grow Plum Trees From Seed, 4.5 Months Old!

How to grow Plum Trees from seed!
Second video in a new series about growing plum trees - or at least my second attempt at it! The first one failed because I transplanted the germinated plum seeds before the roots were large enough to adapt from the ziploc bag into soil. I've learned my lesson and I've restarted the series in the next video.
PLEASE SUPPORT MY CHANNEL (if you wish) - when you shop through the following links, it helps me continue to put out more gardening content and allows me to pursue my passion!
Heirloom Tomato Seeds:
amzn.to/2rBxMjE
Jiffy Professional Seed Starter Mini Greenhouse:
amzn.to/2jNRHrg
Organic All Purpose Fertilizer:
amzn.to/2rCnvUp
Grow Room Rack:
amzn.to/2re2cZ2
Grow Room Lights:
amzn.to/2rbLzg3
Sensei Pruners/Shears:
amzn.to/2HK4o0T
Gardening Gloves:
amzn.to/2HJZBfV
Sorry for the delay but we are now ready to get the second series of Growing Plum Trees from Seeds kicked off!
I do have a few questions for everyone in this video:
1) Should I top the Plum Sapling?
2) Should I leave it alone and just adjust the shelving?
3) Should I go ahead and transplant it outside now?
Other thoughts:
1) One of the Saplings appears to have Peach tree leaves? Is it going to be a peach tree or do the leaves just look like a peach tree's leaves but likely a plum hybrid?
The plum seeds that I am using in this series were purchased from an organic grocery store and I left the plums in the fridge for more than 3 extra months - a form of stratification, if you will.
After several months in the cold fridge (when they were near rotting) I removed the seeds. Then I used a small hammer to crack the seed shell and remove the actual seeds.
Next, I tested the seeds for viability by soaking them in water for about an hour to ensure the seeds sank (this usually means that they are viable seeds).
I then used the wet paper towel/ziploc bag method to create a mini greenhouse for them and placed them in a warm dark place.
Finally, after 3 weeks, 2 of them sprouted. I waited another week to ensure the roots were healthy enough and there was some green seed leaves emerging before I transplanted them.
It's been 3 months now and both are doing well.
One I topped for a test to see how it grows compared to a non-topped one.
I am excited to see how these plum trees grow over the next several months.
Thanks again for watching!
❤ Subscribe for more Free Gardening Tips and Videos: goo.gl/f3D2tj
If interested in connecting with me on other social media networks, here's my links below:
/ robbackyardgardenerr
/ robbackyardgardenerr
plus.google.com/u/0/+RobBacky...
/ robbackyardgardenerr
/ robbackyardgardenerr
#gardening #garden #growfromseed #gardener

[@swainston1]

Top it and make a plum bush, the bonus is you can keep inside away from pests and desease, let it fill out and take it outside in a year or two.

[@larryd6143]

You may have gotten lucky. A lot of fruits need a pollinator, generally a closely related variety, your seedling probably had a peach pollen parent so it could end up producing some delicious fruit (or not). It could also be a cross between a plum and almond. The almond is a close relative of the peach. A lot of interspecific hybrids within the genus Prunus are getting popular including apricots, cherries etc.. I hope yours is a winner. Keep us posted when it bears fruit. To paraphrase; seeds are like a box of chocolates you never know what you will get. I grow all of my citrus from seed. They make a great house plant, are often clones of the original (it's a citrus thing) and are not grafted on dwarfing rootstock so in warm regions they will grow really tall.

[@RobBackyardGardenerr]

Larry D Thank you Larry! Great info!

[@bpj1805]

I thought the same thing, although I've never heard of peach/plum hybrids being available as a commercial crop, and I think I have read (maybe dated) that peach-plum hybrids don't produce satisfactory trees. Either way, that doesn't look like a plum! And I'd say that's more peach-like than almond-like; almond leaves are more rounded at their base. Also interesting that that "peach character" would be so dominant - that tree doesn't look plum-like at all.

[@nevahalle7768]

Plums have to be pollinated from another tree. Maybe this plum was pollinated from a peach tree, since they are in the same family and has strong peach tendencies.

[@RobBackyardGardenerr]

I agree Neva!

[@IntoTheWildernessBushcraft]

Neva Halle - I was thinking the same thing.

[@plants_before_people5329]

Same genus even

[@moonharp]

The one on the right looks very much like a nectarine tree.

[@bpj1805]

@@moonharp There's no real difference between a "peach tree" and a "nectarine tree" until they fruit. A peach produces fruit with fuzz; an nectarine tree produces fruit without. It's the same species.

[@saintmichael2759]

Thanks for sharing. Very interesting!

[@s70rk]

Good looking project. I collected some overripe fallen Mirabelle plums from a neighbors driveway. So at least I'm sure of where they came from and that they're able to grow in my area. I'm excited to get those started.

[@RobBackyardGardenerr]

oooh - nice!

[@5beansalad]

Did you ever plant them?

[@tabithaschooner737]

Thanks for sharing! I've been wanting to learn how to grow plums from store bought plums at home. There's not a lot of info online about how to grow them from seeds...

[@tinalewis6143]

Interesting to see what kind of fruit it produces 😊

[@KKoKoRR]

Plum leaves can look like a peach leaves. Because plums, peaches, apricots, almons.. all they are same family, roseceae or rose family. edit: you already said that. I reacted early.

[@sweetlilwitch]

Would like an update on the progress of your two trees and curious to see what they look like now. And, please update your grow light link. Thanks, and happy gardening!

[@australia3913]

It looks like a sunrise gulf plum

[@MargretGarbo]

I've topped mine. And maybe you have a new variation of plum with the s3cond one.

[@jvslyke4025]

the more you top it the more it will encourage trunk thickening and root growth. i dont think it will hurt it. keeping it pruned small may be better for a back yard.

[@mimib6253]

That one that was topped is growing quite fast & is way darker

[@katrinalafoy8726]

Hi, I would top it, make it bushier and will keep it indoors longer. I'm curious of the turn out. Thanks for the vid.

[@MorrisFuller]

Top

[@frankdavidson9675]

try some Epsom salts on the smaller tree helps green color its a trace element magnesium

[@biggeorgetx]

Store plums possibly were grafted onto peach rootstock?

[@RobBackyardGardenerr]

I do have a few questions for everyone in this video: 1) Should I top the Plum Sapling? 2) Should I leave it alone and just adjust the shelving? 3) Should I go ahead and transplant it outside now? Other thoughts: 1) One of the Saplings appears to have Peach tree leaves? Is it going to be a peach tree or do the leaves just look like a peach tree's leaves but likely a plum hybrid?

[@JM-kb5pm]

For the first question my answer is 2 For second one im not too sure just go ahead and see what you get!!!!! 2 vids in one day!? Wow amazing work

[@sandypriessnitz4458]

Top it.

[@marygorchidsmore2058]

I think you should plant it outside which will grow stronger.

[@PuPpEt-]

I've topped my plum sapling after maybe 3-4 months (high was like yours), to give it a Y shape from the beginning! And my plum tree was growing like mad in my little growbag...

[@jenarupert1359]

3

[@infocat13]

F-1, F-2 hybrids plus X-ray treatment of store-bought plants?

[@jenniferponzini2433]

Gotta love cross pollination!!! Surprise!

[@victormcox]

I done some black walnuts and just kept them in moist soil over the winter. Never cracked them. They busted themselves. Thanks for the video. We've got some plums from our store bought trees and we're trying to propagate them. Are plums like apples? You can get them to grow, but more than likely, it will not be true to the parent tree? Just wondering.

[@openeyes7198]

it may have reverted to a root stock plum graft

[@jenniferponzini2433]

open eyes Hi. Beginner here, what does that mean?

[@paulschaefer5241]

it's only May. I'd say put the taller one outside you have the entire summer to get it used to the weather. it should do just fine.

[@orlandogardener]

Top it🍒🍋🍊🍏🍎

[@heathergalloway9922]

Do both. Top and get it used too outdoors to plant.

[@anacondavapes8744]

That happens to me all the time I plant something and it changes to something els. I had a lemon that turned into a pepper and strawberry’s that turned into tomatoes. It’s strange and a little frustrating

[@alexsummersell3567]

Plant them jokers outside and let them grow.

[@RobBackyardGardenerr]

Alex Summersell agreed. It’s time!

[@MorrisFuller]

Top it

[@frankdavidson9675]

i have large red and black plums will they Pollinate each other i am new with plums

[@PompomYourkey]

Ummm I have one question, I was growing a avocado from a store bought seed and it dose not look like a avocado it’s more like a plum tree but the seed is an avocado. I have the same problems as you but with different trees.

[@paulschaefer5241]

The one thing you must remember with seed grown trees is that they are all genetically different. without knowing which farm the plums came from, it is not even possible to predict the results. it is entirely posible that the one tree is a plum X peach cross. the two trees are closely related and hybrids between the species do exist.

[@litahsr.8226]

well its i little late to say since the video was 2 months ago I would cut the top off so it gets thicker..... I cut my lemon tree twice, put it outside and its growing thick but did not plant it yet its over 1 year and its 16 inches high and 8 inches wide if it was my plum i would cut it to get more branches otherwise it will be tall and weak

[@litahsr.8226]

let me know what u didn't update video

[@samiam159007]

The one on the right definitely looks like a Peach Tree. I've grown several peaches from seed and the leaves are always slender like that. Curiously though I've managed to grow on plum tree that has similar leaves as the one on the left, but the leaves are significantly lighter. But yeah, I suppose the plum you had was pollinated by a peach tree which resulted in a peach seed? I can usually tell the different between the seeds. The plum seeds are a lot smaller than the peach seeds. I suppose in a few years you'll get to see. My plum from seed bore flowers in it's second year. It's in its third year now but still no fruit (no other stone fruits to cross pollinate).

[@nkynative2850]

Prob a hybrid

[@sweetlilwitch]

The grow light link is a dead link. I’m disappointed because I already have that rack and really want to build your grow system.

[@JM-kb5pm]

Rob i got a question when should i transplant my apple trees? (There 5 months old)

[@RobBackyardGardenerr]

I think 5 months is a good time, especially if it falls in May/June. Be sure top put them out in their pots for a week or two and only give them a few hours a day of sunlight - this will harden them off and help them get acclimated.

[@JM-kb5pm]

Thank you so much!!!

[@xeonome1]

I'm just a newbie so idk, but an offtopic question: how are the apples doing?

[@RobBackyardGardenerr]

Update coming soon!

[@samiam159007]

Put the plum outside...do use a organic insecticide though...aphids love plums.

[@kylevanarsdol2751]

The plums are probably genetically modified. Were they labeled organic? I'd be interested to find out if they will bear any edible fruit. The orchardists I know use grafting for starting new trees. If they use seeds, it is to grow the root stock only.

[@RobBackyardGardenerr]

Kyle VanArsdol great questions. They were not labeled organic and I am curious to see if they do produce edible fruit. I do enjoy trying to grow from seed because you never know what you might get. I grow first for fun and then for food so it’ll be a bonus if we get edible fruit. I agree though - worst case is we have done root stock!

[@coolmantoole]

@@RobBackyardGardenerr Hi, I know that I'm coming to this video late, but I'm a home orchardist and have a fair amount of experience with plums. First, I don't know of any genetically modified plum varieties out there. However, for sure those plums would have been a product of selected breeding. They looked like Asian type plums to me which are not self fertile. That means the plums would have about as much genetic material from the pollen parent as from the seed parent just as children get half their genetic makeup from their dad. Consequently the seeds will not be true to the parent, at least not ordinarily. It's likely the orchard had another good commercial variety serving as the pollinizer, but the plums would have been openly pollenated, so it's quite possible that the pollinizer was a wild plum of some sort. That plum with the skinny leaves looks to me like it might have wild Chickasaw plum genes in it. Here's the other thing. Many plums grown in the USA are hybrids between the Asian and North American species. With the hybrids two things sometimes occur. One many plum hybrids are much more receptive to pollen from the North American parent species. In that situation the orchard would interspace wild plum trees in the orchard to serve this purpose. That would help explain the wild plum looking leaves on one of the seedlings. I've never heard of plums hybridizing with a peach, and I would bet money that if it happens the progeny is sterile (no fruit or seeds at all). I know that this is what happens when a plum hybridizes with some species of cherries. This is where flowering plums and flowering cherries come from. They are sterile hybrids between plums species and cherry species. In any event, through the sexual reproduction process the genes very much got scrambled, so there is no telling what the quality of the fruit will be. My guess is that the fruit would be a lot better than a wild type plum, but probably one in a hundred seedlings between two commercial plums would be as good or better than the parents. I mostly grow improved Chickasaw plums. I'm germinating seeds from my plums to use as rootstock. I have wild type Chickasaw plums in my yard to serve as pollinizers on account of them being so much more reliable for that purpose than my cultivars. As a result, most of my seedlings will be half wild plum. They will make great rootstock because the wild Chickasaw plum genes will give them added disease resistance that the improved cultivars don't have. By the way when it comes to germinating seeds what seems to work best is to keep the seeds in a moist paper towel until they start germinating on their own right in the frig. They seem to have no problem popping the pits open. In fact once the pits pop open, I move the seedlings strait to a prepared seedbed outside. It's usually winter here in Georgia when this happens. I have some little seedlings popping up outside right now and our mild freezes don't seem to be bothering them at all. God bless.

[@coolmantoole]

To the question of plums being genetically modified, what I can tell you is that there really has not been much interest in breeding plums to improve them since the early 90s, and that was when modifying genes in the laboratory was still very much in an experimental stage. The most recent breeding programs I know about were the ones at Auburn University and the USDA Research Center in Byron Georgia in the late 80s and early 90s. These programs were focused on crossing Asian and myrobailan plums with improved Chickasaw plums to get new varieties that can tolerate the disease pressure of the deep South. Oh, there was another program in Florida which produced the Gulf Series plums which includes also bread in a tropical species to bring the chill requirement down to where plums could be grown in Central Florida. But the plums were all bread, not genetically modified through gene splicing. Seedlings from these varieties would be quite diverse in character I suspect as genes from multiple plum species get reshuffled.

[@coolmantoole]

You ask, have we ever seen plum leaves that look like peach leave. The leaves of Chickasaw plums look a lot more like peach leaves than those of Asian or European plums, and some of the hybrids between Chickasaw plums and Asian plums do as well. My guess is that those plums came from hybrid plants, and it would be natural for the Chickasaw genes to express themselves in some of the seedlings, and as with my trees, the orchard may be using wild Chickasas to pollinize their hybrids. Here's a link to my Toole's Heirloom Chickasaw plum, and it has wider leaves than a lot of Chickasaws: scontent-atl3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/33747813_1057755914380134_4577133856934592512_o.jpg?_nc_cat=107&_nc_ht=scontent-atl3-1.xx&oh=e22eedcc7937405307948704c1e76898&oe=5CC0F711 Here's a link to a photo of a Guthrie Chickasaw plum: facebook.com/basspecantrees/photos/pcb.274335399774705/274335243108054/?type=3&ifg=1&__tn__=HH-R&eid=ARB-bKIQ4W2ufbF1D8j69zTtxyOOR15Ni_SCuSKHOOCHjaNrmTV1eROUKZ8fse23ScGKBz2_sT7yEboq

[@Michael_McMaster]

Marcus Toole spitting knowledge

[@TheHlewagastiR]

I planted papayaseeds once, but got a birch tree in the pot... I got a bit confused there...

[@arielcortez7393]

I think if I were doing this I would put it in the ground, you won't hurt it a bit.... My co-worker got fruit at three years from his trees. Mind you he put his seed in the ground

[@RobBackyardGardenerr]

Thank you for sharing that Ariel - I am torn between topping and planting outside.

[@growingtolive2383]

Those are odd looking plum leaves. I’m curious now to find out if it really is a plum. I would say your first plum tree would be fun just going outside. Another option is acclimating it outside by leaving it in its pot and when it puts on 6+ inches of more growth, go ahead and transplant it into the ground.

[@RobBackyardGardenerr]

Solid advice! I am considering that very much!

[@GoldenArrow297]

Both of them should get a fair chance to live

[@monahohenkirk8274]

How long the plum tree take to bear

[@RobBackyardGardenerr]

Minimum of 3-5 years.

[@b1izz79]

I had a orange tree for 12 years bonsai'd indoors never grew a flower just huge thorns, seed from a store bought orange. I'm experimenting now with starting plum and carambola from seed to bonsai.

[@theepicethangamer8941]

Those red plums leaves you're growing black and red and plums

[@RobBackyardGardenerr]

Thanks - yeah they are black and red plums!

[@garyjohn316]

Plant him outdoors

[@VaughnMalecki]

Bizarre thing. Transplant it outside.

[@lovelyislam2243]

Rob give me your facebook Id. ineed your help about plum tree

[@sugirthamanohar7474]

put it outside