Is anyone working on hybridizing Nanking cherry with other stone fruits?
I am. Two weeks ago, I pollinated Nanking cherry flowers with apricot pollen and yesterday I pollinated them with stella cherry flowers.
The ones that I pollinated with apricot pollen appear to be developing into fruit.
Do you think these hybrids are possible?
I’m not sure how well Nanking will hybridized. Next to my blueberries, my Nanking are the most mature things I grow. They’ve been a total disappointment. They bloom like crazy but I haven’t gotten a single fruit yet in 4 years. I will likely replace them with something else.
This is so interesting, my Nankings fruit wonderfully but I assume that is because we don’t really get late spring frosts that take out the buds. We are frozen right up until summer LOL
We are too, and yes it is very good thing.
@itheweatherman
On Nanking which is more closely related to plums than true cherries, could cross with an apricot.
I’m looking at crossing Dapple Jack with Fall Fiesta., So much complex genetics are out there already, might as well use them. I’m thinking of developing new flavors here. I will be growing out many seeds next year.
In your estimation, would it be better to use the nanking as the pollen parent?
I used Nanking as the seed parent because I couldn’t get any pollen to pollinate Stella cherry.
I gave Nanking cherries 6 years, 4 of which I had blossoms (and I had sand cherry also blooming as well as a weeping cherry. Fruit production was poor…barely a dozen or so per plant. After 6 years I pulled all five. Sand cherries went 2 years later (disease).
Northstar and U Sask now provide plent of cherries.
Scott
Nanking with apricot sounds like it could be an interesting mix. I have a M800 (apricot/sandcherry mix) it is not old enough to get fruit yet so I have no idea how it tastes.
What do the leaves look like?
Can you post a picture, please.
I’m not sure how much it matters? I would probably want it as the pollen parent myself. Yet I doubt it matters, one has to have some luck too!
Nanking cherries are mostly self-incompatible, great flowering and poor fruit set can be a result of a lack of pollinator. I have bad results myself whereas i’m growing Orient cultivar which is supposed to be (more) self-fertile.
I’m pretty sure my two Nanking varieties are different despite coming from the same order. They have a slightly different bloom, growth habit, and leaf color. They are planted 5 feet apart so I don’t believe it’s an environmental condition that makes them different.
I have three nankings in a row, two bloom white, one soft pink. I had four and when I removed one to put in an evans I chose to remove a white one. I get cherries every year.
ETA I get some cherries every year, some years are more prolific than others.
Umm 
we still have snow and the leaves are not out yet even on the native trees. My M800 was from Konrad on the Far North GW forum and it is still a small scion but I will certainly post pictures of the leaves when they arrive.
The Nanking Cherry flowers (actually a plum) that I pollinated with Stella Cherry pollen are starting to develop into fruit. Now what I have to do is wait until the fruit ripes, collect the seeds, statrify them, plant them, and hopefully I get plum x cherry hybrids.
Nanking would be a good cross for up here it is super hardy and hopefully could add some of that to a plum or apricot cross.
I have good and bad news.
The bad news is that the flowers that I pollinated with apricot pollen fell off. The good news is that the Stella cherry pollinated-flowers are starting to develop into fruit
When do Nanking Cherries ripen?
Seems to me they’re close to apricots that way. Ours are in bloom now, same as the cots, and ripen in early August, irrc.
When my dog starts to eat them 
Seriously, I never kept track.
