Brooks Plums

Back in 2018, Ann and I went shopping for a tree for our side yard with an eye towards growing a little fruit on our tiny 1/10 acre lot. I remember going to one of our favorite nurseries looking for a fruit tree other than a plum, but something about a small plum tree drew us in and it went home with us in the back of our pickup.

Part of what attracted me to the plum was the fact that it was discovered in an orchard in Lafayette, OR, the next town northwest of ours, about two miles distant. I figured that a local plum had to be a great choice for our location. And as I planted it beside the house, I thought nothing more about it other than how I would start pruning it come dormancy and whether it was as self-fertile as the tag proclaimed. A lot of self-fertile fruit does better with another variety as a pollinator. Time would tell.

Brooks Plums, Extra Large Egg

In February of 2018, I committed to my pruning decisions, always a bit nerve wracking for someone who does not prune fruit trees for a living. Then in the spring of 2018, the tree was covered in beautiful white blossoms which morphed into dozens and dozens of tiny fruits, so dense that in June, I dropped a lot of the small green fruit on the ground. The last thing I wanted was a massive load of small fruit threatening to break my new scaffolding branches, the branches that would carry the fruit load for the productive lifetime of the tree.

As we watched the fruit develop during the course of the summer, a lot of it fell to the ground, but still a fair amount remained. I assumed that this fruit drop was normal, but it was a tad worrisome. And as we got into late August, I wondered if and when the egg-shaped fruit would ripen. Magically, as it seemed at the time, the fruit started coloring and by about the tenth of September, the oval blue-purple fruit was soft enough to pick.

Not having any idea what we would be tasting nor how serendipitous our choice of fruit tree would be, Ann and I bit into the first yellow-fleshed fruit off the tree and immediately, we were hooked. It was the best-tasting plum I had ever eaten and its deliciousness was beyond compare. Ann said she preferred these plums to pluots and that is saying a lot, because she adores pluots.

The ultra-delicious fruit got me wondering about the back story of this plum and I found some information at OSU and other places, though some of the information conflicts. OSU says the original Brooks sport was found in 1930; other catalogs place it at 1946. The earlier date may be the discovery date and the later may be the commercial availability date.

All agree that this variety formed the backbone of the now-defunct Oregon prune industry. That prunes are now associated with California is in part testament to the fact that Oregon growers routinely shipped their plums to processors in California. Alas, most of the old plum orchards are gone, replanted to grapes, filberts, or other crops.

Brooks is a sport (a mutation) of the standard oval purple European prune plum which is known locally at the Italian Prune plum. The scion is larger, sweeter, and ripens a week earlier than the parent. The size, sweetness, and relatively dry flesh made it perfect for drying, though we do see little quantities of fresh fruit at the local farmers markets. Moreover, as a bonus for eating out of hand, the fruit has a relatively thin skin and is freestone.

Many references say that Brooks is a little sweet and lacking acid, but ours has the perfect balance of both sugar and acid. You get a big burst of brown sugar sweetness, followed by a medley of fruits (overtones of peach and cherry on the plum), followed by the perfect acidic finish that makes you crave the next bite. In wine-geek-speak, Ann and I are both acid-heads, meaning that we crave wines with great acidity. Our Brooks tree produces fruit with sugar and acid levels that please both of us.

After another heavy winter pruning to shape the tree and with much anticipation for a great second crop, we went into the 2020 season. Rains at blossom inhibited pollination and we got a very tiny crop needing no thinning at all. And we lost 40 percent of that to normal fruit drop over the course of the summer.

While OSU says that Brooks tends to overset, necessitating fruit thinning to avoid branches breaking under a heavy load and while that was necessary in 2019, I didn't touch the sparse fruit in 2020. Some fruit trees bear heavily every other year, but Brooks is supposed to have a reliable crop each year. Although I think it was just bad timing with the weather this year, it will be another couple of years before we know for certain.

Picking day for most of the crop this year was September the 8th, right on schedule despite our relatively cool summer. The rest of the crop I picked on the 12th. And the fruit that you see above in the photo did not let us down. Brooks is definitely the most superb plum I have ever eaten.

The tree put on six or seven feet of growth this summer that I am going to have to tame this winter to keep the tree compact enough for our tiny lot and to carry the heavy fruit load. In retrospect, I should have topped a lot of branches this summer, but I'm still learning about plums. I can't wait to see what happens in 2021 for our third harvest.