Wildlife Chickasaw Plum Tree

The Chickasaw plum pollinator tree sheds its pollen over a long period of time, therefore being a perfectly matched pollinator for other grafted plum tree cultivars. The Chickasaw plum tree is a native plum to America that was first discovered by William Bartram growing throughout the Southern States, and Bartram recorded that the Chickasaw plums, named after the Chickasaw Indian Tribe, were harvested for eating by early American Indian tribes, in his book, Travels, in 1773. Most wildlife plum commercial or backyard plum growers plant two separate cultivars for cross-pollination of their trees, unless they have wild plum trees are growing nearby.

• It is not unusual for plum trees to bear the first year, but the immature fruit should be removed early, so that the growth can go into the tree, not into the growth of the fruit. The growth of a plum tree literally stops expanding, when fruit is on the tree and does not resume until all the fruit has been removed from the tree. Most boys and girls who grow up in the deep South remember wild plum trees, Prunus americana, (Chickasaw plum), that were found growing out near the country dirt road ditches or growing on fence rows bordering fields of agricultural crops, growing in moderate to well-drained soils and the Chickasaw plum trees bloom from March to May. The Chickasaw plum trees produce their first plums in June and then intermittently through August. Deer, quail, and pheasants love to eat the plum fruit with its attractive aroma and sweet taste.

• ??• ??A small Wildlife Plum Tree form large shrubs that flowers in April-May, and matures in late summer, grows along fence rows, edge of woods, stream banks and edge of swamps, and appears to prefer growing in moist or wet soils but will grow in waste places. Chickasaw plum wildlife trees grow from MO through southern NE, north TX and LA, proceeding then to grow in the east towards FL, NJ to IL. A small Chickasaw wildlife plum tree grows to 20 ft, covered with profuse, white flowers before the leaves appear in the Spring that are followed by yellow to red edible fruits, and these plum trees spread by underground suckers that form clumps. Most older hunters remember growing up in the Spring to visit the plum tree thicket, eating a few gold, dead ripe, sweet plums and carrying several pocketfuls back to the kitchen, where mother prepared tasty preserves and jellies thatwere cooked down into a thick liquor for storing in mason jars for winter treats and spreads on hot buttered biscuits.