"Semi-Dwarf Italian Plum Trees" -- Question about lack of fruit!

[lupinfarm]

When we moved in the farmer that had bought the large property and severed ours off said that he was told there were two fruit trees behind the small hay field at the back of our house. Well there are, I found the label today and according to the label they are "Semi-Dwarf Italian Plum Trees," We're not sure how old they are but the label said that when planted they were 1 year old... Now I'm assuming they're a couple years old now maybe 3 or 4 but last year there was no fruit on them at all. Do they need to be fertilized or ... what's happening here? They had leaves last year but nothing else.

Looking for some advice here.

 

[momofdrew]

no flowers??? maybe they dont produce fruit until they are mature...???

 

[TillinWithMyPeeps]

They probably aren't old enough. But, it might be a lack of phosphorus?

 

[GardeNerd]

Most stone fruits need a specific number of chilling hours before they will flower and set fruit. Each variety has its own minimum. The majority of the varieties need a different variety to cross pollinate and set fruit, however some are self pollinating. If they are the exact same variety, they can't pollinate each other. At three or four years they should be flowering, at least little once they get their chill hours in the winter.

If they were incorrectly pruned that can also affect them. They need 6 hours of sun also.

Where I live we don't have enough chill hours to get flowers on that variety of plum. We get about 250 chill hours average to 400 in a cold year.

I hope this helps.

 

[vfem]

Here's something fun I just learned about plums... not all plums, but several plum trees have male and female trees. The females produce the fruit and the males pollinate them. It takes a number of years (4-5 for the standard I was told) to get blooms to even pollinate the females. Worse case... you got male trees and you won't get fruit at all.

My neighbor... 2 plum trees 8 years ago... is getting flowers now, just learned they are both probably male and won't get fruit at all!

 

[vfem]

http://www.groworganic.com/item_FT204_Plum__Italian_European_Semidwarf.html?welcome=T&theses=4506668