Victoria Plum Tree losing fruit

pawsies

Should I bother adding anything like Lime to it or leave it be to drop the tiny minuscule fruit?

Read quite a few pieces of advice but not sure what to do. The trunk of the tree looks healthy, the leaves are dwindling and so is the fruit, but I am quite worried about it

It is kept in a pot whilst I move house and then will be planted properly.

It has been fed and watered recently and to my knowledge there are no other plum trees around (although I believe it is self fertile).

Mojisola

If it's in a pot, it could have got too dry.

If there's lots of fruit on the tree, it could be the June drop - a natural reduction in the number of fruits.

demystified

"The leaves are dwindling" - what do you mean by that exactly? How large is the tree and how large is the pot? Photographs would be helpful.

Have all the fruits dropped or are there still some on it?( Like Mojisala says the June Drop means a number will fall but should not be all of them) Which variety is it i.e. Victoria, Opal, etc? Some are self fertile (like Victoria) but many are not.

pawsies

Victoria

The leaves are starting to curl but I cannot see any pests on it. There were also a lot more leaves before and they are starting to go brown on the end.

About 90% of the fruit has dropped, could be the June drop but I'm worrying that it is not. The tree is about 5ft, pot is about 38cm.

I also found some greyish fluffy mould in the compost which I removed although the compost is usually good quality.

Will take some photos.

DaftyDuck

Sounds like serious underwatering to me. Possibly the tree is getting too big for the pot. Increasing watering would help, but I wouldn't let it stand for long in water if the plant is already weakened.

Browning leaves and fruit drop are key symptoms of lack of water.

RAS

I suspect the pot is too small to support a tree that size. Have you fed it at all?

pawsies

yes I have fed it, also the compost it is in is wet. How much water should it be getting daily?

pawsies

Uploaded pics into OP

splodger_seedswapper

that pot looks way too small for a plum tree

Mojisola

splodger_seedswapper wrote: »

that pot looks way too small for a plum tree

Got to agree with that. Poor little tree!

annie123

I grow my tomatoes in a deeper pots than that!
If you don't have a deeper one, then I'd put some holes in that green bag near it, plonk it in there and add more compost and loosely tie to a support....a drain pipe will do, you're just keeping it alive till you get a better pot and I'd give it some growmore or phostogen if you have some, or any feed at this stage.

Assuming it will be sitting in a deeper and if poss, a wider pot, what one normally does with a plum tree in a pot is:
Early spring add general fertiliser eg growmore, then when the flowers appear, feed every 2 weeks with tomato fertiliser.
You will get June drop every year, and it can take several years to get a half decent crop from a plum tree I've found.

Your plum tree will be fine when you've sorted out it's pot and start feeding it. Don't be surprised if the last plums drop too. Concentrate on getting it healthy this year so you get a crop for years to come.