Topic: Plum Tree - help needed please

[chuff]

I have a plum tree on my allotment which bares nothing but moldy fruit ??? I thought it was because it was heavily ladened but last year it hardly had any fruit on it at all, which were still moldy. I get a black soot over the leaves and a Orange goo that seeps out of the unripe fruit. if anybody has got any ideas on what could be causing this and what I can do to prevent this happening, I would really appreciate it.

[dandelion]

Sounds nasty.
Have a look here: http://www.kenmuir.co.uk/diagnose/plums_diagnose.php

[jennym]

The black sooty mould is a secondary thing really, what's happening there is that aphids are feeding on the leaves - they secrete honeydew (shiny and sticky) and the sooty mould, which is a fungus, feeds on the honeydew. Get rid of the aphids and you won't get the sooty mould, I spray with jets of water in early may as soon as I see signs of aphids, this drastically reduces the population.
The most frequent problems I have had with plum trees have been due to fungal attacks of one sort or another. You comment that the tree was heavily laden last year - maybe a clue there. Fungal growths enjoy conditions of poor air circulation, so maybe thinning out some branches would help too. Your fruit may well be going mouldy because they are in these conditions, damp and with poor air circulation. Again, thinning out branches and removing some fruit will help. The orange goo I'm unsure of, it could be just the fruit rotting after fungal attack, or could be due to wasps, once they've made holes in the fruit, the juice oozes out.

[Robert_Brenchley]

Plums rot quite easily n damp air - could it be that they needed picking earlier? Wasps really go for them as well. The mould will just be honeydew, it's not a great problem.

[manicscousers]

some of our plums did the same thing last year, I think it could be due to overwatering, we had lots of water very late last year, the plums grew quite quickly, do they do the tomato thing, split?