La Crescent Plum

Overview

La Crescent is a Japanese × American hybrid plum released by the University of Minnesota in the early 1920s. Its reported parentage is Prunus salicina ‘Shiro’ × Prunus americana ‘Howard Yellow’.  We have grown Shiro, which is one of the hardier Asian plums (although likely only to about -30F), but since Howard Yellow is a seedling of native american plum, this is where La Crescent gets its hardiness.

History & Parentage

La Crescent was introduced by the University of Minnesota (commonly dated to 1923) and is also sometimes sold under names like Golden La Crescent / Golden Minnesota. 

Fruit Quality & Uses

La Crescent is a thin-skinned yellow plum that can develop a pink blush, with tender, juicy yellow flesh and a sweet, aromatic flavor that is often compared to apricot-like notes. Bob Purvis pointed this out to Luke the first time he visited Bob's orchard in Homedale, ID back in 2022. It’s primarily used for fresh eating and preserving/canning. 

Growth Habit & Spacing

It’s growth habit is upright to spreading and vigorous. As a practical backyard spacing range, plan about 15 ft apart for trees on Native American rootstock (12 ft for tighter spacing/more pruning), and 18 ft. for trees on Krymsk 86 (15 ft. for tighter spacing).

Pollination

La Crescent needs a pollenizer. You can use Native American plum, Prairie Red Plum, or another Japanese x American hybrid that overlaps bloom (Toka, Pipestone, Underwood, or others).

Cold Hardiness

We do not have a whole lot of first hand data on La Crescent because this is one of the newer plums we have grown, although knowing that when Bob Purvis lists the hardiness of plums he grows, which is from whom we got cuttings of La Crescent, he goes off of the same USDA zone scale of temperatures, but if he lists something as Zone 3a, which is the case for La Crescent, then he implies here that the plum is hardy to -40F. And given we have grown plenty of other Asian x American hybrids that do well down to these temps, i.e. Pipestone and Underwood surviving -38F in Stevensville, MT without any winter injury, I think "hardy down to -40F" for La Crescent tracks.