Carmine Jewell 🍒 - These suckers are everywhere!

Carmine Jewell’s sucker profusely once they are old enough so today I began moving these suckers! I’m going to see if I can get another row of these started. It will take 5 years or more before I see the fruits of my labor but the end result is worth the sweat. The rocks come with the cow manure and I use a pile of them to make sure I know where my rows start. I don’t want to miss the rows later on in the summer. CJ are not fast growers the first 3 years.

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They seem invasive

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Not exactly invasive but they sure are good cherry bushes! If you don’t have a couple in the ground I strongly recommend getting them!

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Is your soil quality as good as it appears to this amateur? Those trees and their root sucker habits remind me of our Chickasaw plums. They send out root suckers but can be managed by doing as your doing with increasing rows or I suppose an annual mowing with a heavy duty mower. Looks like they are meeting your expectations.

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@Auburn
The soil is getting better everyday. Lots of it was clay when I bought the place nearly 25 years ago. I ammend it with wood chips & cow manure. After all these years several acres of the soil are pure black gold now. I used hay , sticks, and leaves and dug them in several feet down in this area and in the field I deep plowed it with my farmall M and a 2 bottom plow. Ran a disc over it for about a week non stop and then drug bed springs over it to level it up. Hard dirty work and it was worth everything I put in it.

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Today I’m back at it transplanting cherry bushes into the new row. I’m very hopeful we get more rain than what has fallen so far because I’m not looking forward to watering.

They would be at least locally invasive in an area with their suckering issue. Probably to be determined whether birds start spreading them, though so far I haven’t seen any. But I have seen nanking cherries popping up everywhere now, so those get going easily.

My evan’s cherry suckers a lot more than these so far, getting tons of plants to plant out all the time.

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Looking good!

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They look like the callery pear trees that are taking over the fields and open areas around here. Deep roots that go straight down like a huge carrot or parsnip.

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Oh man. Right now those are starting to bloom here. Field after field full of them. My neighbors have 3 huge ones. I really hope a storm takes them out. Makes me mad to see the big box stores order them in.

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Callery are good rootstocks when used correctly. Why anyone raised multiple strains is beyond my understanding because that makes the seeds fertile. The reason they raised new strains was because it corrects the branch breaking problem.

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Al the nurseries were told they were sterile and could not reproduce. NOW they realized they were wrong. These Bradford pear type trees are EVERYWHERE!! Every neighborhood has them. Rows and rows of them along roadways, streets, parks in some cities. It turned into a mess.

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Interesting. My single CJ was planted in 2011 and has yielded heavily for the past 2 years (30 lbs or more fruit per year), but I’m not seeing any signs of suckering yet. Maybe that is yet to come? Maybe it is due to climate? (I’m Cdn zone 3a - we still have a good foot of snow on the ground, have been snow-covered since early November).

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@Don3a,
Mine showed no signs until they were older but they will do it eventually. The suckers start coming up just like they do with a bounty or goose plum thicket as @Auburn mentioned above with Chickasaw plums. Many mentioned them growing to well but CJ are actually needing lots of attention until they are over 3 years old. They are weak youngsters that need lots of TLC but aggressive adults that produce excellent cherries by the bucketfuls!

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How long does it typically take for new cuttings to start bearing fruit? My CJ barely grew year one.

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They grow very slowly the first 2- 3 years in the ground. The 3rd, 4th & 5th years they grow quickly. Typically they produce cherries in the 5th or 6th year though they can and have in the 4th year. It can be the 6th or 7th year when they produce good if you purchase them as 3 inch plugs. Weather and other things are a factor. If you want to know all about them see this thread Carmine Jewell Cherry Yields increasing with age

So, by the looks of your timeline, the transplanted suckers should be 3 years old this spring - how are they doing? My Oldest CJ is 10 this year and has a number of suckers. I want to try to do similar to what you did - but does it work? I have one sucker that came up nearly 10 ft away and has grown incredibly, I am letting it go. This is the 2nd year and a lot of growth, no blooms while the parent is huge! If you have pics of your transplants - would love to see!

Actually I think the ‘Bradford’ is probably sterile. But, “Cleveland Select” is not; nor are most of the others. (And it’s definitely too late to put the genie back in the bottle!)

*Further, as a ‘Bradford’ died or snapped at the graft…the rootstocks sprouted and became seedling trees…and thus
the crosspollination began!

My carmine jewel was imported from Canada to the US the first year you could do that, so it’s fairly old now. It never suckered until this spring. I think that’s because I pruned it back very heavily last year. I have mixed feelings about the suckers. They are mostly in my lawn, so I suppose the lawnmower will take care of them. But I hope the thing doesn’t become invasive.

I think that is what happened and then it became a big problem. Either that or the Bradfords have muted over the years and are now also part of the problem. I know the Bradfords, but probably the Cleveland varieties, became THE tree all the nurseries and cities started using to put in the parks playgrounds, city buildings, and along the mediums they put in.
We had them in an office building I was in back in the early 80’s. I believe that was when I started noticing them being planted in about every new building that was built then. They became too common of a tree since they were put everywhere. Now we are paying the price.

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