How old is my plum tree??

[Spiritofthewild]

Hi all!

I've never grown fruit trees before but recently purchased a plum tree (a graft with both Santa road and Stirling) from the local nursery. Spring has sprung here in Aus and it is happily producing leaves, flowers, and the start of some small fruits
I have read that you should cut off the fruit during the first year so that the plant focuses on getting big and strong, rate than loosing energy on a few small fruit, but I've got no idea how old my tree is when I baught it... It is about as tall as I am (kinda average height female... Maybe 1.6m but it's been years since I've measuresd...) so as wondering if anyone had any idea how old this may be? I'm guessing one but honestly, I've no idea!

thankyou in advance!

[JONA]

Hi Spirit....
At around 1.6 mtrs your tree is not all that old. Two years or so if it is growing normally.
Plums are by nature very vigorous growers and they like to reach for the sky if they are allowed to grow unchecked.
So usualy the main task as they grow in their younger years is to slow this growth rate down and train your tree to produce fruit rather than excessive wood.
This is done by training the branches to grow out flatter than they want to do..this means either tying them down with weights or putting some wires up so that they can be tied to them.
The easier way is with weights. Just plastic bags with a few stones in, tied to the branches to bring them down and stop them reaching skywards so much.
These are the branches coming off the main stem called the leader.
So...I would leave fruit on any young plum tree. Both plum and cherry are so vigorous in their natural habit, that anything that slows them down and encourages them to produce fruit bud and not wood, is to be encouraged.

[Spiritofthewild]

Thankyou for clearing that up JONA! I'll look into weighing the branches down as soon as I can get back outside without being blown away

[ButterflyLady29]

What they mean when they say to not let it produce fruit the first year is to not let it produce fruit the first year from transplanting. A newly transplanted tree needs time to grow roots.