Your tree was probably not well enough established to handle the crop that was on it last year and making blossoms for this one- even though you don't see it happening, making blossoms takes a lot of energy.

Next year it will probably set a heavy crop. After that it may be well enough established to crop annually. Japanese plums rarely need thinning of fruit to bear annually but your Methely will bear much larger, tastier fruit if you thin it to a single plum every 5 or 6" as early as you can get to it.

The other possibility is that cold killed the flower blossoms which can take less chill than leaf buds- either extreme winter cold or hard early frost.

I have a recently planted Methley that did just that. Two years ago it blossomed heavily and then last year only a few blossoms. This year it's again covered with blossoms.

Thank you so much Harvestman and Creekweb! That is so nice to know, I'm glad it sounds like the normal cycle of things. Harvestman, I appreciate your instructions for thinning, I'm going to copy what you wrote to my computer so I can find it easily in a year or two :)

Of some interest this does seem to be a peculiarity to Methley, as I had grafted another Japanese plum to that tree, and last year while the bulk of the tree had very few blossoms, the grafted section was covered with them. This year the density of blossoms is about equal in both sections.

I planted a Metheley plum tree four years ago and it bloomed this year first time and not a lot of blooms at that. Most asian plums will bloom in their second or third year.

My metheley plum tree is 10 years old and not once produced fruit! The tree is heathy and pretty. so very disappointing! I read up on all the reasons it may not fruit. The reasons don’t apply to my tree situation.

I planted a Methley plum tree six years ago; masses of blossom every year but never any fruit. I thought it was self-fertile, but maybe not!