Transcription
For thousands of years, wild plums have fed the people of North America as a sweet, nutritious food filled with vitamins and minerals. But today, their populations are a tiny fraction of what they were just 200 years ago. I mean, look at this spot behind me. It's completely overgrown. There's litter everywhere. Hundreds of people drive past this spot of wild plums and they don't even bat an eye.
So, what is causing this alarmingly steep decline? In this video, I'm going to show you the three main components that I see every day, and they aren't the normal suspects that you hear about in the media all the time. It isn't really deforestation or climate change or anything like that. In fact, the modern environmentalism movement has a big part to play in the suffering of American wild plums because, as you'll discover, they're really just the tip of an iceberg of a bunch of other issues that go way deeper.
But perhaps more importantly, I will also share three simple things that you can do to make a huge positive impact on wild plums around you, and some of the amazing uses that they have. And the big thing I will show you: the easiest way to actually find them in the wild near you. As their native range spans from coast to coast in North America, chances are you have some growing around you that are hiding in plain sight. Wild plums need a voice, and they need you to hear them. I'm just the messenger, relaying to you what they are so desperately trying to say. Let's begin.
Now, we're covering a lot of information in this video on how to be successful foraging for plums and plum populations, and I don't want you guys to miss any of it. So, as always, I put all the important information in a downloadable guide so you don't have to worry about memorizing all of it. All right, back to plums. We're going to visit many wild plum populations together, but first, in order to understand what's really going on with their decline, we need to go back 200 years to 1791 through the account of botanist William Bartram to see how they were doing back then.
Here, he's talking about some different wild food species that they're discovering. He writes, "I observed in the ancient cultivated fields Diospyros, which is American Persimmon, Gleditsia triacanthos, which is Honey Locust, and Prunus chicasa, which is Chickasaw Plum, one of the American plums, which informs us that these trees were cultivated by the Ancients on account of their fruit as being wholesome and nourishing food." And there are many other entries throughout the book on finding lots of wild plums near Native American settlements, showing us how common that they were.
But there is a little asterisk for Chickasaw Plum, and here is the vital clue: "The Chickasaw Plum, I think, must be accepted for, though certainly a native of America, yet I never saw it wild in the forest, but always in old deserted Indian plantations." But plum trees are trees, right? Why wouldn't they thrive in the forest? Isn't that the natural habitat of a tree? To answer that question, let's go back out to the field, and I think it'll make more sense.
Wild plums are technically a tree, yes, but in many ways, they're more like a shrub. These Chickasaw plums behind me are about as tall as I usually find them. A really tall one would be like 12 feet high, but they normally grow just between 6 to 10 feet high. Compare that to maple trees, poplars, ashes, trees that you find in an unmanaged, closed-canopy forest, all of which grow far past 12 feet in height, usually on the order of 60 to 100 feet tall, and they also grow much faster. So, in an isolated, undisturbed environment, if you leave them all alone, the taller trees will always win, and then they shade out all of the smaller plum trees, and then, not being able to get enough sunlight, they die.
So then you ask, "Okay, well, are we supposed to go out and cut down all the tall trees to allow the plums to grow? Isn't that messing with nature? Haven't we already done too much? Shouldn't we just be leaving nature alone?" Unequivocally, no. No, we should not be, because we've already messed with nature too much. Here's a more important question: How did the plums ever thrive without humans cultivating and managing them if they can't compete with all those tall trees? Well, it's because they weren't in an isolated, undisturbed environment. Their native ecology experienced frequent, powerful disturbances that kept forests far more open than they are today. That disturbance is called fire.
Here is the first big reason for the decline of wild plums: Outside of some isolated incidences in Western North America, we have effectively removed fire from America's landscape, a phenomenon that was integral to the entire ecology of this land. I want you to remember this phrase: Fire equals food. I'll say that again. It is so important: Fire equals food. There is a laundry list of wild food species that require a landscape with fire in order to thrive, like wild blueberries, American hazelnut, black raspberry, oaks, hickories, and many more, including, of course, wild plums. They have a relationship with fire. We call them fire-adapted species.
So, these fires, they ran through the landscape at different intervals in time, depending on the location. In some areas, as frequently as every year, and others, greater than every 10 years. They all contributed to keeping the canopy open so that small but highly productive fruit, nut trees, shrubs, and bushes were able to get enough sun to live and thrive. Native Americans knew this, so they practiced intentional burning in order to keep the land in a form that was conducive to all these wild food species. And by the way, this isn't just a good thing for us humans. This is also food for wild animals like deer, wild turkey, bobwhite quail, prairie chicken, and so many others. It's very interesting that the decline of some of these game birds that used to be a big part of American culture seems to correlate pretty strongly with that of wild plum.
But there's way more that wild plums do for native ecology. The buzzing of native insects around wild plum blossoms in the early spring, just as the cold weather is waning, is a symphony. There are tens of thousands of insects that rely on the early bloom of wild plums. It is a sight to behold, not to mention that the aroma of plum blossoms is sweet and divine. I just, I really hope that all of you get to experience this.
The second major factor is the explosion of aggressive invasive species occupying areas that plums could have survived in. Shrubby invasives like privet and this one right here, bush honeysuckle, and then other ones like multiflora rose, spreading vines like kudzu, which hopefully now people will be removing by digging up the roots to get the wild starch, and many invasive trees, one of which is actually a lookalike that we talk about later. They completely overtake plum habitat and choke out all the plums, and people still plant these in their landscaping too, and then the birds eat the fruit or the seeds and they get spread far and wide.
Another one that some people might not like me covering, but I really have to speak about it because it's just such a big one, uh, is the Albizia tree, or the Mimosa tree. The big thing that I want to address with this is I've seen people with this take that's kind of like, "Oh, no, Mimosa isn't invasive because I haven't seen them growing in the woods, in the forest, only at the edges of forest or at the sides of roads." Edges of forest and sides of roads? Oh, you mean the exact habitat that wild plums could be thriving in?
So, look at this. I can show you here is a plum spot with a lot of construction going on around it that I really hope they don't bulldoze. We're going to go just 50 feet that way. Remember this location. And then we have this entire swath of Albizia that plums clearly can't survive under. There are none of them. They really shade out everything around them, and I'd be willing to bet that decades ago, there were wild plums that were found here. There can be a win-win here. If you want to use Albizia, just harvest the bark, but harvest it all the way around the tree, uh, and then you'll get some, and you'll be helping to keep it back.
Here's another one that I want to show you guys really quick. You can see this. It's right in front of you. Here is a big honeysuckle, and it's completely blocking all the plum from spreading in any direction. And if we go in the thicket, it gets even worse. Right over there is the very small, dying thicket. And then here, look at all the space. It's just completely occupied by all the invasive honeysuckle. And then look at the pattern over there with the plums. So, there's more litter. These are dead right here, but then these other ones, look, they're all bending over as far as they can to try to reach the sunlight over there because everything around them is completely overtaking. Way back in here, there's a bunch of dead plums, and those dead plums back there show you this thicket used to be way larger, but these invasive shrubs, these tall trees, completely choke them out. They just can't compete with them in terms of what we allow to thrive here.
Unfortunately, it really is a choice. We have to choose between the invasive trees, which do very little for local ecology, and wild plums, which do a tremendous amount for the local ecology, including us. Left alone, a lot of these, they are eventually going to take over. They just grow up so tall and so fast compared to the wild plums. The whole idea that we wouldn't consider a tree or shrub invasive because it doesn't get deep into the woods with tall trees highlights the problem with the modern environmentalism movement.
So, to explain that better, we need to go to the next spot. There's something that I have to show you. This here highlights the issue perfectly. Behind me, we have a big, fire-suppressed, unmanaged, closed-canopy forest. In front of me, all of this is always mowed. So, there is just this tiny, thin sliver that wild plums get to try to hang on. And even that is covered with all these invasive species. And every year, more and more of these spots keep on shrinking and shrinking until eventually they disappear. And this one, this is entirely on us. Behind me, this is a wildlife refuge. It's supposed to be for wildlife, and we chose for it to be like this. We've let all of these pine trees grow super tall, which are barely feeding any wildlife. And the plums, we've basically just forgotten about them.
But for so long, you've been told that all of this is good, that the epitome of nature is a nice old-growth forest because the center, the very core of the modern environmentalist movement is the tree. More trees, more better. That's all that they want you to think. I mean, how many causes do you see where you buy their product, and for everyone that you buy, they plant a tree? But what kind of tree? Even around me, there are many examples of perfectly good plum habitat that are literally destroyed because people go out and they plant a bunch of maple in them, and they completely take over.
The truth is, where I live in North Alabama was actually far less forested 200 years ago than it is today. Less forested. It used to be a far more open mosaic with patches of grassland, savannah, and mixed forest in between, way more habitat for wild plums. The same is true for many other parts of North America. Nope, the same is true for most other parts of North America. So please, don't buy into the blanket statement that we need more trees because it is highly dependent on the actual area that you're talking about.
That's why I think seeing how badly the plums are doing is just the tip of an iceberg. It's an indicator of all the other species here that have similar open habitat requirements to wild plums, like American game birds, other bird species, native pollinators, and more, and how bad all of them are doing also. I don't want to imply that deforestation and development has nothing to do with the drop in populations of wild plums, just that if you took all of the land that we currently set aside for nature or wildlife or things like that, 10 times more of that could be viable wild plum habitat if not for the way that we're managing it or for the way that we're mismanaging it. That's the important point that I want to drive home. We can't be like the Titanic and just shrug it off and say, "No big deal, full steam ahead." It is a big deal, but there are so many things within our power that we can do about it. So let's talk about what they actually are. We're done with all the doom and gloom for now. I just wanted you to have the full picture because I really think that it's needed in order to inform how we move forward with restoring plum populations and their ecology.
So now, I'm in my happy place. This is kind of like my baby Chickasaw Plum spot. Last year, I cleared out a bunch of the invasive plants that were in here, and they are doing great. They're going to flower soon, so I'm happy. I really think that the best thing that can happen to wild plums is that each and every one of you watching this video be able to build a relationship with them through foraging. And my goal is to make that possible for you. So to do that, I'm going to show you exactly how to find them growing near you, and then we'll learn how to improve their populations.
There is one very specific window of time where finding wild plums is incredibly easy. Like, you could locate them from hundreds of yards away with the naked eye. It's when they're flowering, which is happening very soon where I am. Almost all the plum spots that I have found were in this window of time. Why? Because plum flowers are bright white and they bloom far before anything else has leafed out, so you can see really far through the landscape without being impeded by leaves, and they really stand out against the dark tones that you typically find in early spring. That's why I always put both the flower and the fruiting window on my interactive forager's calendar so that you'll know exactly when to go out and do what I call flower scouting. Pawpaw is another example where flower scouting is extremely effective. Here is what that timing would look like for wild plums on my calendar.
But let me do you one better. I've been working on a secret project for several months now, and because of that, I can tell you that right here is when you're typically going to find them flowering at each of these separate latitudes in North America. So you can pause the screen and screenshot it to get the timing for the latitude that is closest to you. That's all I can share for now. My newsletter recipients are going to be getting a bunch more details as I unveil more on the Forager's Digest, so check the description for that if you're interested.
In terms of being able to identify wild plums when they're flowering, here is a really quick overview for you. One, as we just learned, they flower very early, one of the earliest flowering trees in North America, especially for having very showy blossoms. They are in the Rose family, so their flowers have five petals per flower, and then the flowers are white, sometimes a little bit pinkish, and the anthers on them are usually yellow. Also, the overall size of the flower is typically under 1 and 1/2 inches in diameter. In addition, the bark is often a little bit darker with kind of brown tones in there, and the twigs and branches have very light-colored bumps on them called lenticels.
You can go ahead and screenshot this table right here where I'm showing you all of the characteristics that you can use to identify them without their leaves being present. And then in the description, I'll give you a link to a photographic guide that I have of winter characteristics for wild plum and several other wild fruit trees, cuz if you can find them in the winter, then you have a really big window of time to get your locations, so you'll be prepared in the spring. And in the fruiting windows, there are over a dozen species of wild American plums in a group called the New World plums. And for identifying them by their flowers, they all basically follow the same or very similar pattern, so you can use the details that I showed you no matter which one that you find.
Remember, there is that one lookalike tree that could kind of throw you off because they do flower at the same time and the flowers are somewhat similar if you don't know what details to look for. And I'll be covering that one at the end to make sure that you don't mistake them.
Now, let's talk about how you can actually help them once you've found them. And for this, I have enlisted the help of a friend of mine, Kyle, from Native Habitat Project, who is an expert on this stuff. So let's meet up with him right now. Hey everyone, I'm here with Kyle from Native Habitat Project. What's up, y'all? Now that we've learned how to actually go and find wild plum populations, we're here at a spot that really needs our help, and Kyle's going to show us some of the things that we can do to help them. So, what should we get started with?
Yeah, we're going to take care of some of these maples and tree of heavens and Bradford Pears that are popping up in the midst of these plum thickets. I think you'll show us the easiest way we can take care of them relatively quickly. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Okay, let's go do that. So, what is this called, what we're doing here? Uh, this is called hack and spray, hack and squirt. Um, basically, you're just cutting into the tree that you want to make a cup and pry it open somewhere that'll hold the herbicide so it's not running as much all over the ground, and then you just add some herbicide. I put some dye in it just so you can see where you cut and where you haven't cut. Even if it's not 100% effective on a tree this large, it's going to benefit these plums just to stress this thing out. It's not going to continue to overcrowd these plums. Even if we get it to just stop growing and a few branches die, that's better than it staying here being healthy and killing all these plums. So, yeah, if looks behind you, that's like hundreds of plums that are dead right there. All right, yeah, we need to get out in the midst of this thicket because that's where we're going to have those opening up fantasy again. Some of these maples in here. This is just a brush killer. Blows if you get go look at brush killer, there's usually poison ivy on the on the bottle. Uh, we want to have triclopyr in it, and that's going to be the most effective. You're not going to kill other trees around this tree using triclopyr here.
What would you say about, you know, using any herbicide at all that they might be doing, you know, more harm than good? What happens if we don't use it? I mean, if we cut these trees down, they're going to sprout back. Even there's going to be 20 stems then, and those 20 stems are going to be taller than these plums in three to four years, so you're back to square one. It's not feasible. The only other option is to sit back and watch all these plums die off. It's just like any other tool, like a chainsaw. You can use it for good, you can use it for bad. You can use fire for good, you can use fire for bad. I hate roadside spraying more than probably anybody on this planet, but I like spraying invasives and protecting species more than anybody else. So today, we're going to have a far greater effect benefiting the future of conservation by using it than we would if we didn't.
These plums right next to you are dead, but if they were alive, that spraying that you're doing right on the tree, would it be hurting the plums? Uh, no, because it's it, it only works like on cuts. You have to spray it on, you know, leaves or inside the bark to to kill a tree. Yeah, for all these tools that Kyle is mentioning, I'm going to be sure to put them in the guide, the downloadable guide I have for all of you guys, and in the description as well. All of these, I mean, hundreds of wild plums, you can all tell they're struggling. So getting rid of these, you can see how much these trees, when they have leaves on them, are going to shade them out, is the key. That's really the key. Fire. That's what this really means.
Well, for people who want to bring fire onto their land, but, you know, of course, that really should require professional. Where can they go to find someone to help them with that? I don't know. I, I disagree. I think the landowner is the perfect person to be doing it. If you go to a learning burn, learn how to burn, and it's a lot easier than you think. There's just a few things you got to know beforehand to pick the right day to do it. You're going to be the best person because it's hard to find prescribed burn managers right now. Learning how to burn yourself is the best bet, and I promise you, you're not going to regret it. It's one of the funnest things I get to do all year long. So probably important to mention that we did get permission to do this here today. Yeah, if, uh, you got some public lands that has some invasives that need taken care of, make sure you get permission. It's always the best way to go about it. Also, it's probably smart to wear PPE, like glasses and gloves. Well, do as we say, not as we do. I'm bad about that, but I didn't bring any today. But if you're doing it, you probably should. And maybe in future years, I'll bring you guys back here, and I'll give you an update on how hopefully the plums start to recover. For now, if you're interested in this kind of stuff, be sure to check out Kyle's YouTube channel.
And I have one more thing that I want to show you guys. For the last and the simplest thing that you can do, I want to tell you a story. A couple years ago, Kyle took me to what was one of the most amazing Chickasaw Plum spots that I have ever seen in my entire life, to this day, the most amazing that I've ever seen. There were literally tens of thousands of fruits there. It was breathtaking. Together, we gathered a bunch of them, from which I made a ton of different things. With the ones that I didn't eat right away, I made salty and sour plums, plum fruit leather, plum vinegar, plum jam. It was amazing, all of it. Oh, really quick, by the way, I forgot to mention this earlier. Chickasaw plums are one that can make for really good eating with the whole fruit, but a lot of American plums have a little bit of a tough, bitter fruit skin. So just pop the fruit flesh out first before eating it, and then they'll be perfectly sweet and delicious.
Anyway, through processing all the fruits, I ended up with hundreds of Chickasaw Plum pits. So I took them to a local nursery and I explained that I wanted to give them all to them for free so they could grow them and they could sell them and keep all the profits. But they turned me away because they couldn't take the gamble on investing all of the time and resources to grow a thing where they weren't sure if there was any demand. Yes, they weren't sure if there would be any demand for wild American plums in America. So let's help them to make the right decision and show them that there is demand. Go to your local plant nurseries and ask them if they carry wild plums. Tell them that you want them to carry wild plums. Go to Home Depot or Lowe's and ask them about wild plums. Do you know how amazing it would be for American plums if the big box stores carried them? It would be incredible. I can hope, uh, and I dream that one day that will all be a reality, but the road to get there will be paved by you and me. Please, I'm, I'm begging you here, please spend some time this year looking for wild plums near you and building a relationship with them. They really, really need it.
But there is one awful tree that may trip you up a little bit because it has flowers that look very similar to plums and they bloom at the exact same time. It's right here. I hate it. You may have heard about it before. It's called Bradford Pear. Many of you have told me that you struggle with distinguishing these, but it's actually really easy if you know the right details. And in this video right here, I'm going to show you exactly how to do that. This is an older video of mine, a bit more experimental. The quality is not quite the same as this one, so bear with me on that. But I really hope that you enjoy it. My name is Jesse. Thank you so much for watching, and I hope to see you there.