Cultivar List

'AU-Rubrum'
'Bruce'
'Damson'
'Explorer'
'Frontier'
'Geneva Mirabelle'™
'Gutherie'
'Hanska'
'Imperial Epineuse'
'Methley'
'Morrisville'
'Pearl'
'Pixie-Cot'^TM (apricot)
'Spring Satin' (plumcot)
'Stanley'
'Starking® Delicious'™
'Sugar Pearls' (apricot)
'Toka'

AU-Rubrum (or is it?)
Breeder(s): .  Auburn University, Alabama.
History:  "AU-Rubrum is an early-fruiting mutant of Crimson."  "Crimson is an Auburn University selection of a cross between Bruce and Methley that produces fruit later than AU-Rubrum and has better disease resistance than Methley."
Type:  Hybrid of the Chickasaw plum (P. angustifolia), P. cerasifera and Japanese plums (P. salicina).
Rootstocks used:  Citation
Orchards grown in: LA County, CA.
Notes:
Fruit quality:  Clingstone.  Auburn's bulletin says it is "generally stone free".  I think they meant freestone, but either way it doesn't describe what I'm growing.  What I have is decidedly clingstone, like AU-Cherry.  Our first fruit was forced off the tree by squirrels.  Nevertheless, it was pretty decent, sweet, juicy and aromatic, though a bit firmer than I like and it still retains sharp tartness at the skin and near the pit, like its species parents.
Fruit appearance:  Deep purplish-red; color lightens and becomes more purple a day or so before they are ripe.  The fruit in the photo above was taken almost two weeks before they were picked.  Auburn describes AU-Rubrum as being a large red plum..." with an average weight of 55 g/fruit, whereas my fruit averaged 28 g in 2023, more similar to the 22 g/ fruit that Auburn lists for AU-Cherry.  HOWEVER, neither cultivar's description matches when it comes to flesh color.  The fruit I grew has yellow flesh with reddish tones, whereas Auburn says AU-Rubrum has red flesh and AU-Cherry has "blood red" flesh.
Harvest season: Late June- early July in the SoCal desert.  142 days from mid-bloom.
Bloom season: Extremely early. Our tree began blooming in late January!
Pollination:  AU-Cherry is self-fertile, as my tree probably is because no other plum was blooming at the same time (though it did overlap with the apricots a bit).  
Diseases:  The Auburn series of plums are generally disease-resistant.
Precocity:  Very precocious; my tree fruited in its second year after planting.
Productivity:  I only got 4 fruit this first year of fruiting, but AU-Cherry is described as very productive and AU-Rubrum as having "...fair to good yields."
Growth habit:  Vigorous tree.  Somewhat upright and often multiple branches will come from the same place on the trunk, so judicious pruning is needed.
Chilling requirement:  Too soon to say.  We had an unusually good chilling winter in 2022-23 (89 chill portions!!!), so I'm pretty sure its limits weren't tested.
Bottom line:  Too soon to say, I'm not even sure they sold me the right cultivar.  My best guess as of today, is that it is actually a 'Shirley'.
References other than my own experience:
Plum Variety Trials in Alabama 1986-1995.  1996.  Alabama Agricultural Experiment Stations.  Auburn University.

Bruce
Breeder(s): A.L. Bruce, Donelly, Texas.
History: Introduced in 1921 by the famous plum breeder A.L. Bruce.
Type: Japanese X American Chickasaw hybrid
Rootstocks used: ***
Orchards grown in: Coal Mountain, Georgia.
Notes:
Fruit quality: Flavor is very tart with notable astringency in the skin and near the pit. Flavor similar to the native Chickasaw plums (P. angustifolia). Very good for sauces, pies, tarts and other cooked plum products. Only fair for fresh eating- it would score worse for those who don't like tart.
Fruit appearance: Light red with heavy bluish-white bloom on the skin and yellow flesh.
Harvest season: Early, sometimes early enough to escape Japanese beetles and curculios (partially) in Coal Mountain, Georgia.
Bloom season: Somewhat before 'Methley', but they overlap enough that it will get pollinated.
Pollination: Needs another Japanese or Chickasaw plum as a pollinizer.
Diseases: Resistant to bacterial canker, black knot and other diseases.
Precocity: Precocious; first fruit set in *** year on ***rootstock.
Productivity: Very productive.
Growth habit: Vigorous, but with a short, bushy habit, making harvest and pruning very easy.
Chilling requirement: Moderate. 500 hours.
Bottom line: Recommended as a low-maintenance cooking plum. If you are mostly interested in a fresh-eating plum, you can do better.
References other than my own experience:
Jacob J. Wright. 2017. Facts about 'Bruce' plum trees. Garden Guides.

Damson
Breeder(s): Unknown, probably a selection made during Biblical times in ancient Syria.
History: see entry in The Plums of New York.
Type: European damson
Rootstocks used: unknown standard
Orchards grown in: Coal Mountain, Georgia.
Notes:
Fruit quality: Flavor is supposedly spicy and tart with sufficient astringency in the skin that most folks don't like to eat them fresh. We didn't get fruit from our trees.
Fruit appearance: see references.
Harvest season: see references.
Bloom season: see references..
Pollination: Self-pollinizing, but with larger crops if a compatible pollinizer, like 'Stanley' prune-plum is around.
Diseases: I don't remember the trees getting sick, they just didn't produce.
Precocity: Precocious; first fruit set in *** year on ***rootstock.
Productivity: Very productive.
Growth habit: Vigorous, tall upright, narrow crotches, kind of a pain to control.
Chilling requirement: ???. x00 hours.
Bottom line: Not Recommended.
References other than my own experience:
Michigan Plum Growers.

Explorer
Breeder(s): John Weinberger selected the seed, but the seedling was tested at the Southeastern Fruit and Tree Nut Research Laboratory in Byron, Georgia. V.E. Prince selected the seedling in 1967 for further testing as BY4-401
History: Introduced in 1981 as an early attempt to provide high-quality purple plums to growers in the Southeast that could thrive in our challenging climate.
Type: interspecific hybrid
Rootstocks used: ***
Orchards grown in: Coal Mountain, Georgia.
Notes:
Fruit quality: I don't remember. Our tree started producing just as I left for college.
Fruit appearance: Purple, with yellow flesh. About 53 mm in diameter, or bigger than 'Methley' and 'Santa Rosa', but smaller than 'Ozark Premier'.
Harvest season: July in Griffin, Georgia; about 115 days after bloom.
Bloom season: About a day after 'Methley'.
Pollination: Fertile pollen, but self-incompatible, so needs another Japanese or American plum.
Diseases: Resistant to bacterial canker (Pseudomonas syringae Van Hall), black knot, bacterial leafspot (Xanthomonas pruni) and other diseases.
Precocity: Precocious; first fruit set in *** year on ***rootstock.
Productivity: Very productive.
Growth habit: Vigorous.
Chilling requirement: Low?. x00 hours.
Bottom line: Recommended for trial, but now there are quite a few plums from Griffin and Auburn that do pretty well. All are still quite risky for commercial production due to their early bloom, making them subject to late Spring frosts. On a very good site, with frost protection (maybe micro-sprinklers and wind machines), one could think about commercial production.
References other than my own experience:
Thompson, J. M., and Prince, V. E. 1981. Explorer-A new full-season Japanese-type plum for the Southeastern United States. Fruit Var. J. 35(3):104-106.

Frontier
Breeder(s): J. Weinberger, University of California.
History: Mostly of Japanese (P. salicina) heritage, but with some P. americana and P. simonii in its pedigree as well (Thompson, 1981).
Type: interspecific hybrid.
Rootstocks used: ***
Orchards grown in: Coal Mountain, Georgia.
Notes:
Fruit quality: I don't remember. Our tree started producing after I left for college.
Fruit appearance: Large, round, bluish-purple.
Harvest season: June, though variable from season-to-season.
Bloom season: ***.
Pollination: ***.
Diseases: Highly resistant to bacterial leafspot caused by Xanthomonas campestris pv. pruni.
Precocity:
Productivity:
Growth habit: Vigorous.
Chilling requirement: Low?. x00 hours.
Bottom line:
References other than my own experience:
J.M. Thompson. 1981. "The Plum Industry in the Southeastern United States". Fruit Var. J. 35(2):53-55.

Geneva Mirabelle™
Breeder(s): Cornell University.
History: Selected from 'American Mirabelle' X o.p. crosses made in the 1950's at the Geneva, NY experiment station grounds. Tested as Mirabelle 858.
Type: P. insititia; mirabelle
Rootstocks used: St. Julien?
Orchards grown in: Pittsboro, NC.
Notes:
Fruit quality: Flavor is sweet and subtle. They are at their best as a prepared product, either baked into fruit pastries such as roulades or dried. Freestone.
Fruit appearance: Beautiful bright yellow with an orange blush and speckled with purple dots. Golden flesh. Naturally small size, about like super-sized cherries.
Harvest season: ***.
Bloom season: ***.
Pollination: I'm not sure. I read that it needs another compatible European plum as a pollinizer. In my orchard, I had only 'Pearl' and 'Imperial Epineuse' as potential pollinizers and I got fruit. After I got rid of the Imperial Epineuse and the 'Pearl' died, I still got fruit! A big crop! So maybe it is self-pollinizing.
Diseases: Disease-resistant to bacterial leaf spot and canker. Also showed no black knot damage while I had the tree.
Precocity: Precocious; first fruit set in *** year on *** rootstock.
Productivity: Very productive.
Growth habit: Forms a naturally small tree, very well-shaped.
Chilling requirement: Moderate? *** hours.
Bottom line: Recommended for those who love mirabelle plums. I personally find the flavor pleasant, but not fantastic, except in German-style schnapps.
References other than my own experience:
Cummins Nursery.

Gutherie
Breeder(s): chance seedling found in north Florida and distributed by Mail-Order Natives nursery.
History: Wild Chickasaw plums used to be common along the dirt roads and fencerows of the South. Sometimes we would go pick a bucket of them for jam or pie and sometimes we would just pick a "bate" to enjoy as we walked or did some farm chores. These wild plums that were such a part of rural Southern life are now not so common, but even in their heyday, they varied widely in quality. Over time, one learned where the thicket of good plums was and which thickets you just left for the possums because they were too sour or too bitter. One thing almost all the local selections of this species had in common was that they were found as thickets because the original tree would sucker profusely. Some lucky fellow in Florida found one that didn't sucker nearly as much and tasted really good, as Chickasaw plums go. This is 'Gutherie'.
Type: P. angustifolia (Chickasaw plum)
Rootstocks used: own-rooted
Orchards grown in: Apex, NC & Pittsboro, NC.
Notes:
Fruit quality: Flavor is sweet and tart with sharply tart skins and some slight bitterness near the pit. Clingstone. Rather low Brix (12° is the best I've seen; 7° is about average), but with distillation, might make an interesting schnapps/ eau de vie. Nice aromatics. 'Gutherie' plum jam is a family favorite.
Fruit appearance: Beautiful pink-red that turn brighter translucent red as they ripen Yellow flesh.  28 g/ fruit median size (small compared to Japanese plums, but bigger than a mirabelle).
Harvest season: Early. Unfortunately, their ripening almost exactly coincides with peak Japanese beetle populations, so without control the fruit on the trees are sometimes just balls of beetles... disgusting. There are effective organic controls, so one need not spray ripening fruit with nasty chemicals to ripen this plum in the South.
Bloom season: Early, but it almost always has a crop, even if there is a late Spring frost, it manages to pull through with some plums.

Pollination: May be self-pollinizing, but in my orchard, there were quite a few Japanese plums that were potential pollinizers as well.
Diseases: Disease-resistant to bacterial leaf spot and canker and black knot. Just a very healthy tree.
Precocity: Precocious; first fruit set in 2nd year.
Productivity: Very productive, even if you don't thin.
Growth habit: Vigorous, forms a tall bush whose width is equal to its height. A beautiful tree for the landscape as well as a useful tree for the kitchen.
Chilling requirement: Low? *** hours.
Bottom line: Highly recommended, especially for those that don't want to work too hard for delicious plum pies and jams.
References other than my own experience:
Mail-Order Natives

Hanska
Breeder(s): N.E. Hansen, South Dakota Agricultural Research and USDA.
History: Introduced in 1908. When we bought our trees, they were labelled as "plumcots" and you can find several catalogs today that still sell them this way. However, they actually have no apricot background. This confusion comes from the fact that people used to call the Chinese P. simonii plums, "apricot-plums" for their taste and texture which they thought was reminiscent of apricots. Not grasping the subtlety of the difference, nurseries propagated hybrids of P. simonii, and sold them as plumcots. See entry in The Plums of New York for more information.
Type: P. americana X P. simonii
Rootstocks used: unknown standard
Orchards grown in: Coal Mountain, Georgia.
Notes:
Fruit quality: Flavor is richly sweet, seeming to confirm the fake news by the lying media that this plum is part apricot. Very juicy. When I ate these plums, I thought I had never tasted anything better.
Fruit appearance: Dark red and yellow flesh.
Harvest season: *** in Coal Mountain, Georgia.
Bloom season: ***.
Pollination: I'm not sure. Our trees were in an isolated orchard with the only other plums nearby being 'Stanley' and 'Damson'. It could be that poor pollination contributed to the poor fruit set of our 'Hanska' plums, because neither European plum would be expected to provide good pollen due to chromosome number differences. Wild Chickasaw plums may have provided the pollen for the few fruit we managed to produce.
Diseases: Our trees didn't have any major disease problems that I remember.
Precocity: I don't remember.
Productivity: Very shy bearers, but we might not have provided the right pollenizers.
Growth habit: Vigorous.
Chilling requirement: Moderate. x00 hours.
Bottom line: Recommended for trial as a fresh-eating plum. They were fantastic tasting.
References other than my own experience:
Pioneer Nursery Company catalog. New Ulm, Minnesota.
The Plums of New York
South Dakota Bulletin 224. 1927.

Imperial Epineuse
Breeder(s): chance seedling found in an abandoned monastery near Clairac, France about 1870.
History: see entry in The Plums of New York.
Type: European Gage
Rootstocks used: Krymsk™ 1 (a P. tomentosa x P. cerasifera hybrid also known as VVA1)
Orchards grown in: Pittsboro, NC.
Notes:
Fruit quality: Flavor is bland and tart. Prunes made from this tree were also sour and unpleasant. Clingstone.
Fruit appearance: Beautiful blue with a notable suture and golden flesh.
Harvest season: ***.
Bloom season: ***.
Pollination: Needs another compatible European plum as a pollinizer. In my orchard, I had only 'Pearl' and 'Geneva Mirabelle' as potential pollinizers and I got fruit.
Diseases: Disease-resistant to bacterial leaf spot and canker. Also showed no black knot damage while I had the tree. I removed the tree due to the poor fruit quality.
Precocity: Precocious; first fruit set in *** year on Krymsk™ 1 rootstock.
Productivity: Productive.
Growth habit: Vigorous, tall, although my tree on Krymsk™1 rootstock flopped over easily and required staking.
Chilling requirement: Moderate? *** hours.
Bottom line: Not recommended. Whenever only one tree is involved, it is impossible to say whether or not another location might have shown its true potential, but it didn't look promising to me.
References other than my own experience:
The Australian Nurserymen's Fruit Improvement Company (ANFIC)
The Plums of New York.

Methley
Breeder(s): South Africa.
History: Introduced to America in 1922.
Type: Japanese X American Chickasaw hybrid?
Rootstocks used: ***
Orchards grown in: Coal Mountain, Georgia.
Notes:
Fruit quality: Flavor is sweet and rich, but with notable tartness in the skin and near the pit. Good-very good for fresh eating.
Fruit appearance: Light purple-red with red flesh.
Harvest season: Early, sometimes early enough to escape Japanese beetles and curculios (partially) in Coal Mountain, Georgia.
Bloom season: Somewhat before 'Methley', but they overlap enough that it will get pollinated.
Pollination: Self-pollinizing and a good pollinizer for other Japanese plums.
Diseases: Resistant to bacterial canker, but very susceptible to black knot.
Precocity: Precocious; first fruit set in *** year on ***rootstock.
Productivity: Very productive.
Growth habit: Vigorous, upright with lots of branches. Crotch angles tend to be narrow, yet the tree is able to hold amazing amounts of fruit with minimal limb breakage.
Chilling requirement: Low, less than 250 hours.
Bottom line: Recommended good plum for beginners or those that have room for only one plum tree. 'Spring Satin' or 'Gutherie' would perhaps be better choices for some tastes, but this is a contender. You will have to manage the black knot and as with all plums, the curculios.
References other than my own experience:
Dave Wilson Nursery.
Stark Bros. Nursery

Morrisville
Breeder(s): Unknown.
History: This plum is probably known by some other name, but I haven't figured it out yet, so I named it 'Morrisville' after the town where I discovered the tree. I used to commute through Morrisville, North Carolina on my way to North Carolina State University in Raleigh. Across from the Morrisville fire station was an old white house with a plum tree in the small backyard. Every Spring it was covered with a beautiful cloud of white blossoms and every Summer it was loaded with red fruit. No one seemed to care for the tree, yet year after year it was loaded with fruit. Finally, I stopped one winter's day and asked the fellow that came out if I could cut a few branches. He said, "Sure" and confirmed that no one sprayed the tree or paid it much notice. I grafted these scions and the young trees soon fruited. My family, I and several folks at work were so pleased with the delicious flavor of these plums that I grafted more and gave them away, as well as planted some in my other orchard. This is a type of plum that should be preserved and propagated.
Type: Japanese or possibly a Japanese X Chickasaw hybrid
Rootstocks used: Pixie. (Not really recommended for plums, but it was what I had and it worked.) I grafted later trees onto Krymsk™ 1 and they did look a bit better.
Orchards grown in: Pittsboro, NC orchards A & B.
Notes:
Fruit quality: Flavor is richly sweet and heavenly perfumed. They are quite juicy and their tender skin has only the faintest hint of tartness.
Fruit appearance: Beautiful purple-red with golden flesh.
Harvest season: ***.
Bloom season: ***.
Pollination: I'm not sure about its pollination requirements. The original tree was near another Japanese-type plum and my trees had abundant pollination partners around. I had just planted some new trees in my other orchard where there were no pollination partners. They bloomed only twice and I got no fruit, but one of those years we had a late Spring frost that would have prevented fruiting. One of the recipients of the trees I gave away swore that he had no other plums in the neighborhood, yet got fruit.
Diseases: Disease-resistant to bacterial leaf spot and canker. Heat-tolerant. Also showed no black knot damage while I had the tree. One tree was likely killed by armillaria root rot, but the other was still producing well when we left North Carolina.
Precocity: Precocious; first fruit set in *** year on Pixie rootstock.
Productivity: Very productive. Care must be taken to prevent overbearing which will reduce the quality of the fruit and the size of the following year's crop.
Growth habit: Vigorous, tall upright-spreading habit.
Chilling requirement: Moderate? *** hours. It never showed any signs of insufficient chilling.
Bottom line: Recommended.
References other than my own experience:

Pearl
Breeder(s): The famous Luther Burbank, Sebastapol, California.
History: Introduced in 1898 as a seedling of 'Agen', but this is highly unlikely because it shares almost no characteristics with 'Agen', whereas it clearly is in the 'Reine Claude' group. see entry in The Plums of New York for more information.
Type: European Gage
Rootstocks used: Krymsk™ 1 (a P. tomentosa x P. cerasifera hybrid also known as VVA1)
Orchards grown in: Pittsboro, NC.
Notes:
Fruit quality: Flavor is richly sweet with abundant sugary juice and a tender skin. Clingstone.
Fruit appearance: Beautiful golden with golden flesh.
Harvest season: ***.
Bloom season: ***.
Pollination: Needs another compatible European plum as a pollinizer. In my orchard, I had only 'Imperial Epineuse' and 'Geneva Mirabelle' as potential pollinizers and I got fruit.
Diseases: Disease-resistant to bacterial leaf spot and canker. Surprisingly heat-tolerant. Also showed no black knot damage while I had the tree. My tree was likely killed by armillaria root rot.
Precocity: Precocious; first fruit set in *** year on ***rootstock.
Productivity: Productive.
Growth habit: Vigorous, tall spreading habit.
Chilling requirement: Moderate? *** hours.
Bottom line: Recommended for the connoisseur who is willing to put in the extra effort. Not really happy in the South, but so good that some may want to try growing it. Perhaps someday, someone will breed for Gage plums that are well-adapted to our climate.
References other than my own experience:
The Australian Nurserymen's Fruit Improvement Company (ANFIC)
The Plums of New York.

Pixie-Cot^TM (apricot)
Breeder(s): Zaiger Genetics.
History:  Tested as 15MA522.
Type:  Apricot
Rootstocks used:  Nemaguard
Orchards grown in: Pittsboro, NC.
Notes:
Fruit quality:  Catalog says it's "fine quality".
Fruit appearance:  Mine died before it fruited, so I don't know and the catalog doesn't say.
Harvest season:  Early June in California's Central Valley.
Bloom season:  
Pollination:  Self-fruitful.
Diseases:  Very susceptible to bacterial canker...that's what killed it in the most massive display of the disease I've ever seen on any tree.
Precocity:  I dunno.
Productivity:  Dead trees don't talk.
Growth habit:  Genetic dwarf.  It's a little tyke, but it died so quickly that I didn't get a lot of experience with it.
Chilling requirement:  500 hours by the inaccurate old, but prevalent method which translates into roughly 50 chill portions.
Bottom line:  Not recommended.
References other than my own experience:
Bay Laurel Nursery. 2023 Winter catalog. p. 9.

Spring Satin
     
Breeder(s): Dr. Dick Okie, USDA-ARS, Bryron, GA.
History: Introduced in 2002.
Type: A plumcot, but it took a correspondence from Dr. Okie to convince me because an article published in the New York Fruit Quarterly in 2006 showed all 3 of the listed parents as plums. Dr. Okie kindly replied to my question and I will quote him here: "The NYFQ article did not give the complete pedigree. Spring Satin was an open-pollinated seedling of plum BY8111-6, which was from a cross of BY4-601 x 'Frontier' (probably by putting bouquets of Frontier in the BY4-601 tree and letting the bees do it.) One seedling had fruit that was fuzzy, so we assumed it was a chance pollination by apricot pollen, since we had plums and apricots in the same block. This seedling was eventually named Spring Satin. Over the years we grew many seedlings of SS and got an array of skin and flesh colors and flavors." BY4-601 =(Queen Ann x Santa Rosa) x Frontier.

Rootstocks used: Unknown standard
Orchards grown in: Pittsboro, North Carolina.
Notes:
Fruit quality: Flavor is sweet and rich with only a slight tartness in the skin. They really combine the apricot sweetness well with the more tart Japanese plum.
Fruit appearance: Purple with yellow flesh.  Median fruit size 42 g/ fruit.
Harvest season: Early, early-mid June in Pittsboro.
Bloom season: Early, partially overlapping with the apricots.
Pollination: Needs another Japanese plum pollinizer. (Or an apricot???)
Diseases: Resistant to bacterial canker, and bacterial spot. I've had to cut out a little black knot on one tree next to the woods, but very little.
Precocity: Precocious; first fruit set in second year on standard rootstock.
Productivity: Very productive.
Growth habit: Vigorous, many upright watersprouts. Requires significant pruning. Dwarfing rootstock recommended. Spreading over time with the heavy crops. Beautiful springtime blossoms.
Chilling requirement: Low. Less than 39 chill portions (600 hours using the common, but erroneous method).
Bottom line: Highly Recommended. You will have to be vigilant in protecting them from curculios and prune them well, but you will be rewarded with a tree that does credit to your landscape and your palate.
References other than my own experience:
Adams County Nursery.
Stark Bros. Nursery
Okie, W.R. 2006. New York Fruit Quarterly. 14(1).
Okie, W.R. personal communication. June 8, 2020.

Stanley
Breeder(s): Cornell University.
History: Developed in Geneva, New York in 1926..
Type: European prune plum
Rootstocks used: unknown standard
Orchards grown in: Coal Mountain, Georgia.
Notes:
Fruit quality: Flavor is sweet and perfumed, juicier than any prune plum that I've purchased at the store, including commercially-grown 'Stanley' plums. Freestone.
Fruit appearance: Purple with waxy whitish bloom, making it look more blue; greenish-yellow flesh.
Harvest season: *** in Coal Mountain, Georgia.
Bloom season: ***.
Pollination: Self-pollinizing.
Diseases: I don't recall us having any major disease problems with these trees. Of course, curculios are always a threat to stone fruits with the partial exception of the earliest-ripening ones, which 'Stanley' is not. In years when the frosts didn't get the blossoms, the curculios took the entire crop. The few plums we got were when a favorable Spring combined with a dedicated spray program being followed by me.
Precocity: ***; first fruit set in *** year on ***rootstock.
Productivity: Very productive further north, but my Dad had almost 30 trees and we got maybe 7 plums out of the whole orchard over the orchard's lifespan. The trees were yanked out with the tractor.
Growth habit: Vigorous, upright, often with narrow crotch angles.
Chilling requirement: High for Piedmont region of NC and below. 800-900 hours. The trees on my Dad's farm never showed signs of insufficient chilling, but we had higher elevation and it was 40 years ago, when we got more cold weather at that latitude.
Bottom line: Not recommended. The site for my Dad's orchard was poorly chosen (South-facing, if I remember correctly). We were quite inexperienced then. They were among the first fruit trees my Dad had ever planted. Nevertheless, in the South, these plums tend to bloom too early and be too sensitive to the frosts during bloom when they come.
References other than my own experience:
Stark Bros Nursery.
Dave Wilson Nursery

Starking® Delicious™
Breeder(s): ***.
History: Discovered in 1931 and introduced by Stark Bro’s in 1951.
Type: Japanese
Rootstocks used: unknown standard
Orchards grown in: Pittsboro, NC.
Notes:
Fruit quality: Flavor is mildly sweet with a tough tart skin and some bitterness near the pit. Flavor lacking, despite the claims in catalogs. Only fair for fresh eating. We didn't try cooking with them, but it seems that their bland flavor would be a detriment in that department as well. Clingstone.
Fruit appearance: Dull red with red-purple flesh.
Harvest season: ***.
Bloom season: Needs a pollinizer. Produces good pollen for other Japanese and Chickasaw plums where the bloom times overlap.
Pollination: Needs another Japanese or Chickasaw plum as a pollinizer.
Diseases: Disease-resistant to bacterial leaf spot and canker. Heat-tolerant. Also showed no memorable black knot damage while I had the tree.
Precocity: Precocious; first fruit set in *** year on ***rootstock.
Productivity: Very productive.
Growth habit: Vigorous, tall spreading habit.
Chilling requirement: Low? *** hours.
Bottom line: Not recommended. It just lacks flavor.
References other than my own experience:
Stark Bros. Nursery

Sugar Pearls (apricot)
Breeder(s): Rutgers University.
History:  Resulted from a cross of two unnamed apricots (NJA103 X NJA45).  Tested as NJA150.  Plant patent PP18639.
Type: Apricot
Rootstocks used: unknown standard
Orchards grown in: Pittsboro, NC.
Notes:
Fruit quality:  Excellent sweet flavor, though without much balancing tartness, but taste is subjective.  It's a delicious fruit even by my standards, which tend to run more to the tart.  18° Brix typically, according to the patent.  Freestone.  Average size 37 g according to the patent.
Fruit appearance:  Light golden yellow skin, often with a light and speckled red blush on the sunny side.  Flesh is unapologetically white.
Harvest season:  Mid-June in Pittsboro.
Bloom season:  The catalog says that it blooms late for an apricot, and I guess if they mean by a few days, then I'd agree because mine bloomed just about 4 days after my other apricots, though the blooming period overlapped with them and the Spring Satin plumcot and several plums.
Pollination:  Needs a pollinizer.  Gurney's recommends another apricot.
Diseases:  I saw little, if any bacterial spot on the clean leaves, but the tree did succumb to something, presumably either Armallaria root rot (probable, it was prevalent in the orchard) or bacterial canker (less likely considering the symptoms).
Precocity:  Not particularly precocious; first fruit set in 5th year on standard rootstock.  The catalog claims it's very precocious, but catalogs tend to written by politicians.  I'm going with what I've seen myself.
Productivity:  Shy producer in Pittsboro's climate.  It would reliably be covered with a cloud of blossoms (gorgeous tree), but would only set a few fruit.  There were some seedling apricots around and some 'Spring Satin' plumcots nearby, but there could have been a pollination issue as well.
Growth habit:  Vigorous, spreading habit.  The crotch angles are wide and start low, so once it's mature, it's an excellent tree for climbing.  My daughter was careful not to damage the tree, but she loved to climb in it.
Chilling requirement:  700-800 hours by the inaccurate old, but prevalent method which translates into roughly 72 chill portions.
Bottom line:  Highly recommended as an ornamental tree, but if you want reliable crops of apricots, you might want to keep looking.
References other than my own experience:
Gurney's online catalog.  2023-April-13.
Plant Patent PP18639P2

Toka
Breeder(s): NE Hansen.  SD Exp Stn
History:   A Prunus americana x Prunus simonii cross introduced in 1911.  To see more detail, see 1927 South Dakota Experiment Station Bulletin
Type:  Hybrid of an American and a Chinese species (the "apricot plum").
Rootstocks used: unknown standard
Orchards grown in: LA County, CA.
Notes:
Fruit quality:  Grower Don Johnson’s comment: “Talk about flavor: candy plum.” Sweet, distinctive, meaty and flavorful. Not really juicy. Somewhat freestone.
Fruit appearance:  "Rosy red fruit, up to 1½ inches in diameter, mottled with darker purplish-red and covered with a faint bloom."
Harvest season: Late Summer in Maine.
Bloom season:
Pollination:  Needs a pollinizer. blooms heavily every year.  "Considered a good pollinizer for other hybrid plums because of its long bloom period."
Diseases:
Precocity: Unknown...tree to young & don't see the answer in the literature; first fruit set in *** year on ***rootstock.
Productivity:  
Growth habit:  Extremely vigorous tree.  Diligent pruning may be required to keep it from becoming a bit of a monster.
Chilling requirement:   ? *** hours.
Bottom line:  
References other than my own experience:
Fedco online catalog; 2023-04-05