With that information I can predict my future yield on my CJ. This year I have **one ** cherry so next year 2 then 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, etc. 
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I am way ahead of you with 5 this year.
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Or a U-Pick. Brady
I should add montmorency if it doesn’t crack. I have a seedling sour (of Northstar or Meteor…i forget) and it flowers every year and yet never produces any cherries…i have no idea what is up with it, but i should graft it over to montmorency and fix that problem.
Warmwxrules,
Could that just be a pollination issue or do you think it’s weather related? My northstar bloomed profusely this year and produced very few cherries which is why I asked. Carmine Jewell overlaps the bloom here but my northstar are a long way from anything because I like to grow my stone fruits in remote locations on my property since stone fruit are more disease prone here. We will likely start picking carmine Jewell today or tomorrow because the rain has continued and they are likely to crack soon. The area sloshes when you walk where they are growing. You can see by the picture they are very wet. I’m releasing an estimated 3000 - 5000 gallons of water per hour from my ponds depending on if it’s raining or not. We have been releasing water like that over a week. These el nino years are always like that here which is why I planted so many new trees this year. I will wait until the next el nino to do another large planting.
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You best get on 'em Clark, I can see the one cracked cherry in the top pix already. Man that rain can be a blessing or a curse.
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They look great. The pictures you post allow me and others to share a little of your farm/orchard. Bill
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The Carmine Jewell’s are coming in by the gallons now! We are picking them earlier than I like but the crop won’t wait. As we mentioned already they are susceptible to cracking so it’s unfortunate but we cannot let them turn black. Insects are after them to since they are one of the first fruits of the year. Other cherries in the romance series will be planted next time to stagger the crop. Mulberry and juneberry are ripening as well but are slightly behind schedule. The cherries are being browsed by a few birds but out of the thousands ripe I will barely even notice any insect and bird loss it will be so minimal. The birds are heavily browsing the mulberries that are ripe and even eating the ones not completely ripe. Years ago I planted many mulberries within 10 or so feet of my cherries to distract the birds. The mulberry tree buffet lines are staying full of birds and I’m averaging around 30 birds an hour eating them. I’m glad to see a hot sun today because we need to get the mulberries ripe because we don’t want those birds running out of food and looking elsewhere. The sun will also get the cherries riper which will increase the brix. This is the first bowl of cherries of the year!
You can see by this picture we are picking them several days early due to the insect pressure and wet conditions this year
These two pictures show what the birds are eating but note the mulberries are much smaller this year than what they normally are. The mulberries are receiving heavy insect pressure as well but that will not bother the birds.
This picture below shows the insect damage we are getting occasionally and the flesh to pit ratio of carmine jewell. The flesh to pit ratio of these cherries is very good but finding a mechanical pitter is very unlikely that would work with these small pits.
These pictures below are the juneberries which are ripening early like the mulberries and cherries again timed to overlap the mulberries ripening time so that we can raise a crop without heavy bird pressure. The juneberries are taking some insect pressure and show some hail damage from a few days ago.
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I had 5 cherries I was waiting to turn almost black but something ate 4 of them so I tried the last one. It was really close to being ready and tasted good and sweet but was very soft, is this normal?
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c5tiger,
Yes that is normal they are soft and all sour cherries are much softer than sweet cherries in my experience with the several varieties that I grow. Carmine Jewell seem to be very high quality cherries. I removed most of my old Hansen and nanking cherries once these became mature. I still have a row or two left but in every way the CJ cherries are superior.
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Clark,
What insects are going after the fruit? Brady
Also @clarkinks , a few more questions please.
How close did you plant the CJ? What did you do for weed control during establishment? Do you have to do any weed control now that they are mature?
I apologize if you’ve already answered any of these questions on this thread. I read the thread and saw some of these things discussed, but I don’t recall you made comments on these issues.
Brady,
They look similar to these western cherry fruit flys and based on damage every thing fits http://jenny.tfrec.wsu.edu/opm/displaySpecies.php?pn=150. The eastern cherry fruit fly is similar. They are to late at this point to do any real damage. They showed up yesterday. The warm winter cheated them out of the carmine jewell crop. They are said to get started in may 5 weeks prior to the cherry crop but the cherry crop is early so they are late. That should hurt their numbers next year.
Olpea,
When i planted them i mixed composted manure in the hole with the heavy clay soil about 10 parts soil to 1 part aged cow manure. Originally I just mowed around them the first 3 years. When they needed fertilized after a few years I used composted manure on top of the ground. As you know manure would produce a lot of weeds so I added 4 inches of wood chips on top of that and replenished chips as needed twice to hold moisture and act as a weed barrier. I added a cup of magnesium and azomite on top of the manure before I put the wood chips down. I wanted to establish the correct soil organisms which wood chips helps with. The wood chips not only hold water, smother weeds, establish beneficial soil organisms but the also add valuable trace minerals. I spaced them about 3-5 feet apart so I would not need to do weed control later and they would form a solid row.
Carmine Jewell’s going on 3rd leaf at the start of 2013 (they doubled in size that year)
This is when I top dressed the row in early 2014
This was the spring bloom and size in 2014 (note you can see wood chips and soil supplements have been added) Coffee cup was for size.
This was later 2014
This was 2015 and you can see the results of top dressing the row
This is 2016
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We picked 4 1/2 gallons of cherries today. Looks like there will be more in a day or two. That does not count the pint + that I ate. It’s nice to see some good production out of these Carmine Jewells.
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Good lord they grew fast. Looking real good too.
I’m on the 3rd year and it’s barely 10 inches or so.
Two others never even survived.
Laura,
The first year they sleep , Second year they creep, third year they leap! The fruit bushes benefit a lot from manure and woodchips in this alkaline soil. The biggest challenge I had in growing them was meeting the soil needs. The soil is bad enough it could be used to make pots where they are growing so it needed amended or they would only be knee high now.
Clark, you have got the goods!
I have one CJ, 5th leaf I think, and it has set its first significant crop this year. I guess I’m about a month behind you. When I planted it, I read that these really liked some babying with soil amendments and such, so like you I incorporated compost and rock dusts in the hole with woodchip mulch on top. Lime and/or woodashes in late winter and I fertigate in the spring with liquid seaweed/fish.
Healthy robust growth the last two seasons as it has gotten going.
Crimson Passion has been a bit slower, but got well established last year, so I hope it puts on some good growth now.
I wonder if these are more well adapted to the alkaline soils out west…
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Jesse,
Another year or so and you will have plenty of cherries on the bush! They take a little while to produce good. Our weather was milder than normal this year so we did not have much of a winter. They say the prairies are alkaline soil so since they were bred for the prairies that would make sense why they tolerate this soil. This has been the first year we got a really good crop and I can see now Carmine Jewell is everything it’s supposed to be.
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