Anyone know anything about.....

Do you know the variety of plum tree you have? We have one that needs pollinating. Last year DH went and hand pollinated all the flowers. We managed to get a few plums of a good size. He's done it again this year and it has fruit on.

It is a variety called Czar, which is supposed to be self-fertile. It sets fruit, but they drop off before they mature. Do you feed yours?

I found this:
"Natural Drops

Plum trees drop fruit naturally in two major cycles. The first drop happens in spring when the tree sheds infertile plums over a two- or three-week period after blooming. The second drop happens in midsummer. Not all plum varieties exhibit this June drop, which most commonly affects the Italian prune plum. Where the drop is not sufficient, plum quality may be poor. Improve the fruit by thinning to one plum every 3 or 4 inches on the branch."
Maybe your tree isn't mature enough to support all the fruit?
We have 2 plum trees. One is quite old, dark purple fruits, and never drops. The other is about 5 years old, a yellowy green fruit, and varies from no fruit to a few. Some drop, a shame because I prefer them to the purple ones, which I find too sweet.
Look on Google "plum tree dropping fruit early." There's something about a possible fungal disease being the cause.

ps on another link I found that Czar plum trees are very prone to plum moth which causes fruit to drop.

Blimey, I thought it might be something simple!

We have several plum trees ( in France) and they are now about ten years old. For many years they produced next to nothing - then a Brazilian pharmaceutical professor came to visit and his speciality is trees and possible medical uses - he looked at all the trees and said they needed phosphate ( I think that is what it is) and since then OH has regularly put the wood ash from the wood burner around the trees. All the fruit trees have responded well and also the just decorative ones. Most of the trees have good crops so far although we still have a few weeks to go till they are ripe enough to eat.
Of course many fruit trees do take a 'rest' year.

Thank you for all the input. I will have a good look round the tree today to make sure we don't have any nasties, and then perhaps think about whether it needs feeding. I suppose it is too late to feed them now that they have fruited for this year. I never actually wanted a plum tree; I thought an apple would be better, but DH went and bought the plum. I have to say I was quite excited this year when it set all the fruit to begin with, but it's been rather disheartening to see them dwindle away to almost nothing.

We have two Apple trees which are laden with fruit and s plum tree that hasn't recruited for about ten years. We get about a dozen tiny plums that then fall off.
There was a time when we used to make jam to use up the heavy.crop. and now nothing.

When we shake the tree we disturb loads of little white flies.

I have two plum trees. One produces so much fruit the branches can break under the strain if we don't thin the fruit. The other products half a dozen plums a year.

One produces sweet plums the other sour ones. No prizes for guessing which is which

My Bramley apple tree is again laden and we have taken off the really small apples from the bunches growing and we have an eating apple tree which is laden but two others which normall produce are very poor this year. Best year so far for the plums though.

Greyduster - try having a look inside one of the fallen plums to see if there are any creatures there.
Fruit trees are prone to all kinds of diseases. The first time we came to France we stayed in a gite with a huge plum orchard next to it. One day I saw the farmer going round in his tractor, spraying the lot. He was all muffled up in a mask, overalls, head covering etc - not very encouraging!

It used to be the given thing that fruit trees took seven years to fruit properly. Yours is still a very little plum tree. Give it time. (They do have lovely blossom in the Spring.)

Ours was destroyed by tree surgeons supposedly making a neighbouring tree safe.

I think they need space, and sunshine.

Tricia I have just been out hanging the washing and I thought I'd have look at one or two of the fallen fruits. They were too hard to be pulled apart and showed no sign of having been "invaded". However.... there is some evidence of grubs inside curled leaves, so I guess this is plum moth or sawfly . jings it has both space and is on a South facing wall so gets all the sun going, and you are right, it does have lovely blossom in the Spring - Himself says "it's a tree - just enjoy it! If we don't get any fruit, so what?" But I am not renowned for my patience.

That's how I feel about our fruit trees. They are lovely trees. They make shade and, being broad leaved, they must be good for the air. The fruit, tbh, is just a nuisance for the most part. The Worcester Pearmain Apple is the only one I eat much of. I use some of the Bramleys but don't bother to store them nowadays. I really prefer to buy them ready sliced from Waitrose.

We bought a plum tree from Tesco 4 years ago, it was discounted at £3.99, the variety is Opal which is very simlar to a Victoria plum. In it's first season we got 4 pounds of delicious plums, in the second season we got 11 pounds, last year we got 24 pounds, this year looks to be a bumper year too! Opal is not self pollinating so there must be another plum tree in the vicinity. Pollination is important but so is the soil and position, perhaps you could move it to a better position or buy a second tree?

I assume it must be being pollinated, or it wouldn't set fruit ....would it? We live on a largish estate of private houses, which, when it was built, was landscaped with many fruit trees; apples, cherries and pears mostly (free fruit is a bonus!) but I haven't seen any plums, except that a small community orchard was established the year before we moved there, which does have a couple of small plum trees, so I may go down when someone is working there and see is they have had any probs with theirs. I just think we would have done so much better with apples! BTW, I have just come in from digging up all my strawberry plants and while I was out there, another plumlet fell off, so now there are only three of the original thirty four left.