Damson

Family

Rosaceae

Habit

Tree

Height

6 m

Spread

6 m

Growth

medium

Lifespan

20 years

First yield

after 3 years

Yield per plant

up to 60 kg a year

Yield in cultivation

up to 12 t/ha

Hardiness

zone 5–9

Shade tolerance

light shade

Soil

Sand, Silt, Loam, Clay

Soil moisture

dry – very wet

pH

4.5 – 8

Times apply to the northern hemisphere in a temperate climate and shift with altitude and cultivar.

Edible: The quetsche is the classic baking and drying fruit among the plums: its flesh is firm, the stone parts cleanly, and it does not collapse on heating — which is why it lies on the Zwetschgenkuchen and is cooked down into purée. The fruits are oblong, dark blue and heavily bloomed; depending on cultivar they ripen from August into October and only sweeten properly on the tree, so picking over several times pays. Drying raises the sugar content sharply, and dried quetsches keep through the winter. In the Balkans the fruit is the basis of slivovitz, in Central Europe of Zwetschgenwasser and liqueur. The flowers serve as an edible garnish, and an edible gum exudes from wounds in the trunk. Bitter-tasting kernels contain amygdalin and do not belong on the plate.

Medicinal: The only well-documented medicinal use of the quetsche is the mild laxative action of the dried fruit; it rests on a high content of sorbitol and fibre rather than on any single active compound. Dried quetsches are accordingly a recognised household remedy for sluggish digestion. An infusion of the bark as a fever remedy is recorded in folk medicine but has not been clinically tested. The seeds inside the stone contain amygdalin; bitter-tasting kernels release hydrogen cyanide on chewing and are not a food. Leaves and bark contain the same cyanogenic glycosides and do not belong in infusions. The flesh of the fruit is harmless.

Other uses: Quetsche wood is hard and dense, with a red-brown heart and a distinct sapwood; it dries badly, shrinks heavily and cracks easily, but once seasoned it is prized for turnery and inlay and is used for handles, furniture details and wind instruments. The leaves give a green dye, the fruit a grey-green one and the bark a yellow one. The gum exuding from wounds formerly served as glue. An oil can be pressed from the kernels. Own-rooted trees build groups over time through their suckers, usable as a hedge or windbreak — in an orchard the same trait is more of a nuisance.

Site: The quetsche is the least demanding of the large fruit trees, but it needs even soil moisture — in dry years it drops fruit and what remains stays small. It flowers late and so escapes the late frosts that regularly catch apricot and peach, which makes it usable in rougher districts. Most cultivars are self-fertile, though a second tree raises the yield. Distance from existing plum plantings is decisive: the quetsche is the main host of sharka disease, spread by aphids and incurable — infected trees bear blotched, gummy fruit. Own-rooted trees sucker and wander over time, a nuisance along lawn edges and beds. Care: Prune in summer after harvest, never in winter; winter cuts open the way to gummosis and fungal infection. The quetsche fruits on one-year and older wood, so thinning the inward-growing shoots usually suffices. Heavily laden branches break easily and should be propped when the crop is dense. Regular visitors include the plum sawfly, whose larvae make young fruit drop, and the plum moth, whose maggots sit in ripe fruit; grease bands and gathering windfalls reduce the pressure. Monilia tip blight is answered by cutting back into healthy wood.

Quetsche cultivars are grafted, because seedlings do not come true. The usual method is budding in August at ten to twenty centimetres, with whip and cleft grafting available in late winter. The rootstock governs vigour and soil suitability: St. Julien A suits light soils and unirrigated plantings, WaVit and WeiWa good sites, and Pixy keeps the tree small in a garden. None of the three suckers much — an advantage over older stocks such as 655/2. The Hauszwetschge can also be grown on its own roots: it throws plenty of root suckers, lifted in winter and replanted directly. Such trees come true but grow more strongly and take longer to bear. Sowing serves only for raising rootstocks and needs cold moist stratification over winter.

The quetsche flowers in April and supplies wild bees, bumblebees and honeybees with nectar and pollen; as a relative of blackthorn and plum it is at the same time a larval food plant for a range of native moths and butterflies. Its ecological value stands or falls with management: an old standard tree in an orchard meadow is a habitat in itself — cavities in decaying wood house little owl, wryneck, redstart and bats, and deadwood sections carry their own beetle fauna. Windfalls in late summer feed wasps, butterflies such as the red admiral, and hedgehogs, badgers and foxes. Ripe fruit is taken by blackbirds, starlings and corvids. A short-lived spindle tree in a plantation delivers almost none of this.

Special features: subspecies of the cultivated plum (subsp. domestica), English German prune/quetsche — not damson; fruit oblong, blue-bloomed, freestone → the classic baking+drying fruit; Hauszwetschge documented since the 17th c.; mostly self-fertile; flowers late → little late-frost risk; main host of sharka (incurable, aphid-borne) → keep distance from orchards; prune in summer after harvest, never in winter (gummosis); can be grown own-rooted from suckers; slivovitz(Balkans);

Western Asia, in Central Europe since Roman times. The quetsche is not a wild species but the most important subspecies of the cultivated plum, arisen from the cross of blackthorn and cherry plum in the region between the Caucasus and the Caspian Sea. Its German name traces through Latin prunum damascenum back to Damascus, by way of which it reached the Mediterranean; the Romans carried it north. Today it is the most widespread plum form in Central Europe, centred on Baden-Württemberg, Rhineland-Palatinate, Austria, Hungary and the Balkans, where it is distilled into slivovitz. The Hauszwetschge, documented since the seventeenth century, is the best-known cultivar. Genuine wild populations do not exist.

The quetsche is purely a cultivated tree and grows where people put it: in orchard meadows, cottage gardens, along field margins and in rows beside tracks. It is occasionally found naturalised in hedges, where root suckers build small groups. It needs deep, nutrient-rich and well-aerated soil with even moisture; on light sands it stays small and suffers in dry years, on heavy waterlogged ground it languishes. It needs less warmth than peach or apricot but more water while the fruit swells. Because it flowers late it is markedly less exposed to late frosts than the other stone fruits and therefore succeeds in uplands to around 600 metres.