Encouraging fruiting spurs on a plum tree?

My eight-year-old Italian prune plum just doesn't like to bloom. I had only about 20 blossoms this spring. Should I be fertilizing a certain way, or pruning at a particular time, to develop fruiting spurs? I'd really like to get some fruit from this baby.

Starks say to pinch the growing tips in June to encourage branching. It makes sense and I'll do that with my newish trees. They also add that you should trim out part of that growth during the dormant period.

This may be of help:
http://www.omafra.gov.on.ca/english/crops/facts/02-041.htm
Scroll down to the cultivar descriptions. According to this, Italian is not recommended for your area which means it's going to be a challenge to grow. This variety needs deep soil to do well — at least 3.5'. It has a tendency to bear heavily on alternate years, low fruit set in cool rainy springs and drop lots of fruit during the summer.
Fruiting spurs develop over time. Dont' over prune or you will remove future fruiting branches
ianrpubs.unl.edu/horticulture/ec1233.pdf
http://www.ext.nodak.edu/county/cass/horticulture/fruit/prune.htm
extension.usu.edu/files/gardpubs/hg363.pdf
Hope this helps. The PDF files didn't come through as links. You'll have to copy and paste them.

Thanks, bettydee, I'll follow up on those links. Looks like I've got a double whammy with the Italian... not recommended for this area and probably not good soil. It's located in my back yard, which was a new development when I planted the tree. When I excavated, there was 6" of stone dust under the 6" of topsoil, which I removed, and under that was just basic 'dirt' and construction rubble. I dug a good sized hole and filled it with compost and good soil when I planted, and some bone meal. The tree is healthy, but doesn't produce blooms.

I know of several people in Ottawa who have Italian plums that are loaded with fruit every year... go figger. Mine may not get enough sun (about 5 hours max in the afternoons).

I did not prune last fall or winter, hoping not to lop off any possible fruiting spurs. It's trained as an espalier, so pruning is part of its maintenance. The photo is from two years ago; the tree is bigger now.

Thanks again for your help.

Andy, that might not be the best plum for your area but it should be OK, and now that its eight years old I would not replace it with some other kind. European plums can take a long time to come into bearing. I have a dozen different European plum trees which are five years old and only three are fruiting this year. Looking at your tree I can't believe how small it is -- I prune the heck out of my trees and they are much bigger. Is it getting enough sun? You can't grow decent plums in the shade, and unless that wall is south-facing it is going to block out a lot of the sun. I don't think you need to prune more, it looks nicely spread out in that picture. You may need to fertilize it a bit to help it get going.

Scott

scott- i have been wondering if the productiveness of a tree has a lot to do with the particular genes of the rootstock and the scion wood-

what i mean by that, is that i know some people with european plum trees and cherry trees that were purchased from dave wilson suppliers, and they said their trees produced regularly within 3 years or so-
whereas, you and I and others, have the same trees, and they are taking many many years to produce.

im thinking perhaps, for example, not all greengage trees, or ranier cherry trees, etc, are equal- what do you think?

GG, there is indeed an influence of rootstock. My only European plum producing a lot this year also happens to be my only one on Citation rootstock, which is a Dave Wilson stock. Citation is a precocious rootstock. I didn't think it was that much more precocious than the others (Marianna, St. Julian, Myro), as it doesn't seem to make much difference for the Japanese plums or peaches. But maybe it has a big impact on the precocity of European plums.

The genes of the scionwood should be fairly similar, but they may be sports of each other. Some sports could be more precocious than others, but I have never heard of that myself. I would say the rootstock is the biggest difference between any two "Green Gage" trees purchased from different nurseries.

Scott

I agree with Scott about the rootstock being the most variable even within the named rootstock varietals since they are seed grown. Scionwood should be more stable. Growers of nursery stock have a reputation to uphold so they would probably discard any branches that are different from the scionwood donating trees. Any branches of "Green Gage" that are different enough to be called a sport would no longer be considered "Green Gage".

This is a more recent picture of my plum, taken a few days ago. The other photo was older and doesn't show recent growth. Also, I did fertilize this year, and winter pruning was very light because I didn't want to remove any fruiting spurs. Hence the huge amount of green growth. The tree faces west and gets about 5 hours of sun daily. Maybe that's the problem.

I usually prune in late July and early March. This year I'll be taking out two fairly thick branches growing from laterals near the top -- I think they're trying to become leaders. I want to keep the espalier form.

Most fruit trees need full sun all day to produce. Is that fence in your property? If it is, consider replacing the vertical slats with wire.