have I got plum pocket

hi, for several years the plum tree in my garden (which yields a few small yellow plums I think may be mirabelle or claude reine) has suffered from producing mostly small, flattened banana shaped plumlets (!) at the beginning of the growing season, like now! they shrivel and drop of in time. the tree itself appears healthy, responds well to heavy pruning, and has no sign of leaf curl or dying of the branches, but we never get a good crop of plums. is this plum pocket? if not, any ideas? if so, any ideas how to treat it?
thanks

On this site is a picture of plum pocket, which doesn't sound at all like your description.

http://www.ag.ndsu.edu/pubs/plantsci/hortcrop/pp689w.htm

I can't find anything even remotely similar to what you describe as most problems affect the leaves rather than the fruit in such a manner.
Only suggestion I can make is to take a few of the fruit, a few leaves, and take it to your local gov't agricultural division and ask them for help. If they can't figure it out, they'd very likely send you to someone who can. It could be something simple as soil problem, late frosts, etc. but I wouldn't assume anything without a professional opinion.

My mother has the same problem - vigorous plum bush but no fruit. Her area has lots of heavy and late frosts which kill off all the flowers so she never had any fruit in the 25 years she tried, so she simply cut down the bush and planted something else.
The only solution to get fruit if you're in this type of area is to spread loads of fleece over the tree top and tie it down against winds until you're sure frost is past. It's a lot of work but our weather patterns are changing a lot and we have to change our thinking with it.

Never heard of it until now, but does it look like this?

https://www.rhs.org.uk/advicesearch/Profile.aspx?pid=199

Seems that tidying up  and general fortification of the tree is the best although it seems some chemical is available if you feel it necessary, and can locate whatever they refer to.

Hi Siouxfly, when you take your pics, download them into photobucket, it`s free to join and then you can upload the into here, it`s easy when you get the hang of it, if you need any help just shout.

Manna, your description sounds rather like sawfly damage, which I sometimes see a few on my plum tree.



Remove any flattened plums from the tree and any that have fallen on the ground and destroy them. This prevents the grubs from overwintering in the ground to emerge the next spring to lay their eggs at plum flowering time.