Dunbars Plum Seeds

Clean High Quality Fruits Produced with No Spray-Immune to Disease and Insects

Dunbars plum is a natural hybrid plum that contains both the sweet and tart plums of the American and the beach plum. The plants tend to be more vigorous than the species and will grow into a central trunk. Many of the seedlings also have good stoloniferous tendencies which is ideal for clonal reproduction.  This hybrid swarm is fully self fertile and easy to grow from seed to use both as a source of new cultivars as well as a population of wild plums free from extensive breeding.

The trees are usually upright trees and form a single trunk. The fruits vary from half to one and a half inch range and are running red to blue in color.  The fruit is clean with little insect damage or fungus making a quality fruit for processing for jams, jellies and other uses. This strain was originally selected from trees for their high quality fruit, good yields and no insect or disease damage. Having a plant with clean foliage is a good place to start for the selection part of it early in the plants life.

Dunbars plum adds to the great diversity of American plums on the population level and aids in the selection process by creating stoloniferous types with central trunks that are longer lived than beach plums. The fruit is usually blemish free without spray and the trees are immune to black knot. 

Germination:  Fall plant seeds 1/4 to 1/2 inch deep. Most seeds will sprout the first year, however it is not uncommon for 50 percent of the seeds to sprout in the second year depending on the conditions. To germinate seeds indoors, put the seeds in a lightly moist Canadian peat moss and refrigerate from 34-38 F for 60-120 days. The seeds will begin cracking open in the fridge after 60-90 days. A portion of the seeds will not sprout and these will need to go through another warm period (summer) and cold to sprout. Plant your sprouted seeds one at a time in a lightly moist well drained soil mix. Tops will appear in 1-2 weeks. Dunbars plums are easy to grow from seed.

From 2024 crop year. Mixed selections include Red Planet and others as part of the packet. Refrigerated seed kept at 3$F to 38F.