There used to be a plugin that dropped apples when you cut trees, or collected hemp etc
cannot remember the name, any help would be great.

Whichever plugin you are thinking of probably has the word "gather" in the name, possibly https://umod.org/plugins/advance-gather.

I thought maybe "random gather", but I think you are right , I remembered the fruit logo.....

I'm beginning to think maybe an SQL loader for plugins..... is the way to go..

it could actually be run from a rust plugin... and dynamically load  & unload  copy & move other plugins.